Television advertising aimed at children. Possible implications for family relations and consumer behavior.

The goal of this explorative research is to analyze the modalities through which the advertising message aimed to children is structured to highlight the strategies that can provide supporting evidence in children’s appeals to pester their parents. For this reason a content analysis has been conducted of television commercials aired by six major television networks in a week, for a total of 759 cases, evaluating their characteristics in terms of both form and content. The descriptive data analysis and the cluster analysis points out the most frequently used communication strategies in children advertising: - the attraction by similarity, especially in male and universal ads, to stimulate in the spectator a positive evaluation by presenting the product and its use as similar to the recipient and close to his social reality; - the transposition of the evaluation, mostly used in female commercials, which consists in the presence of elements known to be rated positively by children, such as kittens, cartoons. With regard to needs, these are closely linked to the merchandise sector: the ads related to the “food and drinks” sector are based on the need for membership and ties the product to a playful dimension; the “clothing” sector is linked to aesthetic needs while the “games” sector is related to the need for self-fulfilment. As shown from the data analysis, children are involved in receiving a complex message, structured to leverage their natural needs (affection, friendship, fun, play, etc.).