Digital Food Marketing to Children and Adolescents: Problematic Practices and Policy Interventions

Examines trends in digital marketing to youth that uses "immersive" techniques, social media, behavioral profiling, location targeting and mobile marketing, and neuroscience methods. Recommends principles for regulating inappropriate advertising to youth

Towards a Video Consumer Leaning Spectrum: A Medium-Centric Approach

Purpose: As TV and digital video converge, there is a need to compare advertising effectiveness, advertising receptivity, and video consumption drivers in this new context. Considering the emerging viewing practices and underlying theories, this study examines the feasibility of the traditional notion of differentiating between lean-back (LB) and lean-forward (LF) media, and proposes a revised approach of addressing video consumption processes and associated advertising effectiveness implications. Methodology: An extensive, systematic literature review examines a total of 715 sources regarding current lean-back/lean-forward media research and alternative approaches as by (1) basic terminologies, (2) limitations of lean-back/lean-forward situations, (3) advertising effectiveness implications, (4) video-specific approaches. Findings/Contribution: Key differences between lean-back and lean-forward video consumption are presented. A conceptual integration of video ad receptivity/effectiveness drivers is proposed to guide future media and marketing research and practice. Video consumption today is no longer lean-back or lean-forward, but a “leaning spectrum” with two dimensions: leaning direction and leaning degree. Designing video content today requires focusing on consumption drivers and platform synergies for owning the “leaning spectrum”

High-street fashion brand communication amongst female adolescents

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The nature of high-street fashion brands amongst female adolescents is a combined set of fast fashion movements and early adopter demands within a compressed timeframe. This research has investigated the need for a communication plan to appropriately deliver the brand message for this sector. There are a number of information barriers for high-street fashion brands to build customer value and differentiate the core values of their brands from competitors because of 1) imbalanced strategic communication implementation particularly in the encoding process, 2) ambiguous interpretation of target audience behaviour as a key disseminator of brand messages and 3) a lack of an integrated communication approach to complement the brand building communication plan. Accordingly, there is a need for a brand building communication framework to formulate and direct the female adolescent perceived values within a limited time based on mutual understanding and shared requirements between a high-street fashion brand and its target audience. Moreover, a strategic plan using an integrated brand-building communication in the encoding process which optimises the contribution of the audience must be developed. This research has revealed that high-street fashion brands should concentrate on consumer self-construal, consumer-brand congruence and consumer-brand relationships of female adolescents in order to clearly construct brand messages which match audiences’ values and lifestyles. Due to the needs for informative cooperation amongst the target audiences, the brand-building communication strategy as a persuasive medium, which encourages audiences and prospects to initiate interactivity with the high-street fashion brand, was thoroughly examined in the empirical study. A conceptual model of a high-street fashion brand-building communication was developed and evaluated by means of design research methodology and soft systems methodology. The proposed model explains the platform of brand-building communication strategy in the encoding process for the high-street fashion market. A number of advantages are offered: Firstly, brand managers may use the model to overcome the barriers to integrate a fashion brand communication strategy. Secondly, it can enhance the recognition of fashion brand-building communication. Thirdly, the model offers an approach to leverage customer-brand relationships by means of the communication process. Fourthly, it allows the description of a holistic view of brand message construction in the encoding process. Finally, it offers a strategy to integrate online and off-line communications

Children's advertising literacy : empowering children to cope with advertising. A multiperspective inquiry into children's abilities to critically process contemporary advertising

The present dissertation has germinated from AdLit (short for Advertising Literacy), which is a nearly completed four-year interdisciplinary research project (2014- 2018) funded by VLAIO (Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship). This project is based on a collaboration between 19 researchers at four Flemish Universities (UGent, KUL, UA & VUB) and various stakeholders in the realm of policy, society, education and marketing. The main goal of AdLit is to examine how minors can be empowered to cope with contemporary advertising, and hence become critical consumers that independently make conscious and well-informed choices. To date, this has been achieved by investigating the current levels of advertising literacy in Flanders and how these can be increased, and by examining how regulation and policy can protect minors. In this process, numerous research reports and scientific publications have been delivered, and socially valorized (e.g. by spreading brochures, videos, games and educational material to parents, teachers, educators, advertisers and the minors themselves). The current thesis bundles the theoretical essays and empirical studies conducted by the PhD candidate at the Center for Persuasive Communication (CEPEC) within the Department of Communication Sciences (Ghent University), who specifically focuses on investigating and improving the advertising literacy of children for the advertising formats they are currently targeted with. As made clear in each of the following chapters in more detail, this particular focus is motivated by the observation that children today are not only exposed to advertising more frequently than ever, but also to many ‘new’ forms of advertising. Most characteristic is that these integrate advertising in highly entertaining and engaging media formats, such as movies, videogames and YouTube vlogs. It is generally indicated that, as children are still developing, they will more consciously engage with this explicit, immersive content, rather than with the implicit, commercial content. Thereby they are unlikely to muster the necessary motivation and cognitive resources to cope critically with the embedded advertising, and to develop the relevant advertising literacy needed to deal with future exposure to advertisements using similar tactics. Ultimately, this implies that children are most vulnerable to preconscious and possibly unwanted persuasion. These concerns have sparked a lively debate, which seems to be dominated by two major assumptions. In particular, it is thought that 1) children are unable to adequately cope with contemporary advertising, though 2) can they can be enabled to deal with advertising, but only through ‘affective defense mechanisms’ – that is, by encouraging resistance through having them evoke negative attitudes when confronted with advertising. As these assumptions may have far-reaching consequences for the societal and political approach of this topic – for instance, adherence to protection or restriction versus empowerment – the present dissertation scrutinizes their validity using a variety of academic perspectives and methods. More specifically, it is examined 1) whether 8- to 12-year-old children have the potential to cope with these ad formats, and 2) whether they can be enabled to do so in a conscious, well-advised, cognitively elaborate and critical manner (on the moment of exposure), rather than through affective defenses only. To meet these goals, the first three chapters aim to deepen and expand insights on children’s abilities to cope with the current, mostly embedded advertising formats directed at them. In particular, the first chapter provides a theoretically grounded conceptual framework on which to build subsequent research, reckoning with children’s developmental skills. Here it is argued that investigating their advertising coping abilities may require the consideration of multiple, mutually interacting types and dimensions of advertising literacy. Thereby it is proposed for researchers to adopt the concept of moral advertising literacy, or at least to acknowledge the importance of evaluating advertising practices – which are of an increasingly covert nature – in a moral manner. The second chapter builds on this conceptualization to deliver a critical overview of methods and instruments used in extant literature to measure children’s advertising literacy, as methodological issues may have been partially responsible for the inconsistent findings with regard to children’s coping abilities. On this basis, suitable ways are recommended to assess this concept according to age-related psychological development, for instance by using illustrated questionnaires or qualitative interviews for children in late childhood. The third chapter uses the latter method, and more specifically draws on 12 focus groups (using child-friendly eliciting and probing techniques) including 60 children of ages 9-11 years, to further explore the newly proposed concept of moral advertising literacy. This study demonstrates that when children are made aware of implicit advertising tactics and their effectiveness, they have the potential to critically reflect on these, and more specifically to evaluate the appropriateness of these advertising practices with possible consequences for others in mind. Having established children’s potential for critical thinking about advertising in the current context, the following three chapters of this dissertation aim to explore how certain interventions or strategies may enable them to acquire the relevant advertising literacy, and use it at the moment of exposure. As it is desirable for such interventions to ascertain which social actors can be involved to most efficiently impart advertising literacy on children, the fourth chapter first explores the role of parents, peers (here: classmates) and teachers in transferring and exchanging advertising-related knowledge, skills and beliefs. Using the appropriate multilevel analysis techniques on data from 9- to 12-year-old children (n = 392), their peer group (children aggregated per class; n = 22), their parents (n = 191), and their teachers (n = 22), it is found that children’s cognitive and attitudinal advertising literacy is strongly influenced by their classmates – suggesting they could be attributed an empowering role in children’s development of the respective advertising literacy dimensions. Moral advertising literacy proves to be more influenced by children’s teacher, albeit in a remarkable manner – ultimately suggesting to focus first on updating teachers’ (and parents’) advertising literacy, especially for the newer formats. Finally, the fifth and sixth chapter use previous insights to develop and test various strategies and interventions designed to help children cope more effectively with embedded, entertaining and engaging advertising formats when the need arises. Chapter 5 focuses on sponsorship disclosure by testing whether the effectiveness of an advertising warning cue depends on specific characteristics, and more specifically its perceptual modality (S1, n = 98) and its timing (S2, n = 142). Here it is demonstrated that a visual forewarning cue (rather than an auditory or concurrently shown cue) most adequately triggers 8- to 10-year-old children’s advertising literacy for brand placement in TV programs and movies. In chapter 6, it is shown that for advertising embedded in a highly engaging media format, namely a sponsored YouTube vlog, a more implicit strategy based on priming (preceded by education) is more effective in activating 5th- and 6th-grade primary school children’s (n = 240) advertising literacy. Moreover, in both chapters it is demonstrated that the advertising literacy as triggered by these interventions does succeed in altering outcomes desired by the advertiser, but in a manner that depends on children’s evaluation of the advertising tactics. Concluding that children can also be empowered to critically process contemporary, embedded advertising when confronted with it, the seventh and last chapter discusses the implications this conclusion may have for the current political and societal approach of children and advertising – thereby identifying opportunities for developing interventions that may help them grow toward independent, critical consumers that make well-informed judgments and (purchase) decisions

Efeitos negativos e limitações da gamificação no período entre 2005 e 2020: uma revisão sistemática da literatura

A gamificação tem sido definida como a aplicação de elementos de jogo a contextos que não são de jogo (Deterding et al, 2011), de forma a promover comportamentos nos indivíduos (Hamari & Koivisto, 2015). A investigação acerca da gamificação tem sido desenvolvida numa perspetiva de procura de benefícios em áreas como o marketing, a gestão e a educação (Rodrigues, Oliveira & Rodrigues, 2019). Porém, constata-se uma lacuna na literatura relativamente a uma investigação que contemple o lado negativo da gamificação e as suas potenciais limitações. O objetivo geral deste estudo consistiu em compreender os efeitos negativos e limitações da implementação da gamificação ou de elementos de jogo mencionados na literatura científica de diversas áreas. Para tal, elaborou-se uma revisão sistemática da literatura cobrindo 86 textos científicos publicados entre 2005 e 2020 em revistas científicas de ranking maior ou igual a Q2. Utilizou-se o Leximancer para extrair os principais temas e conceitos abordados. Constatou-se que os temas “gamification”, “aprendizagem”, “desempenho”, “comportamento” e “marca” foram os mais explorados pelos investigadores no período analisado. Os conceitos “marca”, “efeitos”, “contexto” e “comportamento” são aqueles que mais se relacionam com o conceito “negativo”, que se associa também com os conceitos “controlo” e “desempenho”. Detetou-se que a gamificação tem, sim, um lado negativo, que está dependente do contexto e que se manifesta principalmente no âmbito de situações de aprendizagem. A base teórica construída neste estudo permitirá a investigação sobre os fatores contextuais que limitam a eficácia da aplicação da gamificação em situação de aprendizagem.Gamification has been defined as the usage of game elements in non-game contexts (Deterding et al, 2011), to promote certain behaviours in individuals (Hamari & Koivisto, 2015). Since it is a recent, gamification has been research from a benefit search point of view in areas like marketing, management and education concept (Rodrigues, Oliveira & Rodrigues, 2019). However, there is a lack of transversal studies about the negative side of gamification and its potential limitations. The main purpose of this study was to understand the negative effects and limitations of the implementation of gamification or gamified elements, mentioned throughout scientific literature of several areas. We have thus performed a systematic review of literature covering 84 scientific texts published between 2005 and 2020 in scientific journals of Q2 or higher. We then used Leximancer to extract the main themes and concepts considered. We concluded that “gamification”, “learning”, “performance”, “behaviour” and “brand were the main themes underlying the investigation conducted in the analysed period. Moreover, “brand”, “effects”, “context” and “behaviour” are the closest concepts to “negative”, which is also associated with “control” and “performance”. We confirmed gamification does have a negative side, which depends on the context and is mainly present in learning situations. The theoretical basis brought by our study allows for future investigation on the context factors that hinder the efficacy of gamification in learning situations

Drivers of smart speakers' advertising acceptance

The growing impact of technology on marketing communications is inevitable. That is why brands need to achieve the vision of these new technologies, which are becoming the new channels of communication and purchasing, to get closer to the consumer. Artificial Intelligence and, consequently, smart speakers are becoming one of the major trends in marketing, bringing benefits not only for brands but also for consumers. Thus, this study explores what factors may impact the acceptance of receiving advertising through these devices. This study's objective focuses on 329 Portuguese consumers' responses and uses a partial least square structural equation modelling to conduct an empirical study. The results indicate that the channel’s acceptance has a significant impact on consumers' acceptance of advertising and the hedonic motivations. However, it demonstrates that the perceived value and trust of advertising do not significantly impact its acceptance. The study suggests that smart speakers should benefit their users and have added functions that allow interaction with what is being advertised. Besides, the content that brands want to advertise should be relevant and contain information related to users' interests to generate positive feelings towards the ad, leading to a higher predisposition to accept advertising.O impacto crescente da tecnologia nas comunicações de marketing é inevitável, é por isso que as marcas precisam de alcançar a visão destas novas tecnologias, que se estão a tornar nos novos canais de comunicação e de compra, a fim de se aproximarem do consumidor. A Inteligência Artificial e consequentemente os assistentes de voz inteligentes estão a tornar-se uma das maiores tendências na área do marketing, trazendo benefícios não só para as marcas como também para os consumidores. Assim, este estudo explora quais os fatores que terão impacto na aceitação em receber publicidade através destes dispositivos. O objeto de investigação deste estudo centra-se nas respostas de 329 consumidores portugueses e utiliza uma modelação de equações estruturais baseada em "partial least squares" para realizar um estudo empírico. Os resultados indicam que a aceitação do canal tem um impacto significativo na aceitação da publicidade por parte dos consumidores, bem como as motivações hedónicas. Contudo, demonstra que o valor e a confiança percebida relativa à publicidade, não têm um impacto significativo na sua aceitação. O estudo sugere que os assistentes de voz inteligentes devem trazer benefícios aos seus utilizadores e devem-lhes ser adicionadas funções que permitam a interação com o que está a ser anunciado. Além disso, o conteúdo que as marcas pretendem anunciar deve ser relevante e conter informação relacionada com os interesses dos utilizadores, de forma a gerar sentimentos positivos nos consumidores e consequentemente levar a que a sua predisposição para aceitar publicidade seja mais elevada

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure