CHILDREN'S PERCEPTIONS OF TV COMMERCIALS AND PRODUCTS

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Abstract
This study investigated whether public service announcements about the nature of television advertising might influence (a) children's awareness of advertising's intent; (b) their belief in its truthfulness; and (c) their perceptions of products they see advertised. First-second and fifth-sixth graders were shown one of three stimuli: a No-commercials videotape, which consisted of two cartoon shows; a Commercials tape, which showed the same two programs plus commercials for a cereal, a chewing gum, and a board game; and a Consumer Information Processing, or CIP tape, which was the same as the Commercials tape except that it began with a pod of three announcements which gave information about the selling intent of commercials and suggested that one should be critical of commercial claims. Comparisons between the Commercials and the CIP condition showed that awareness of intent was increased among and younger group (the fifth-sixth graders were already aware); belief in the truthfulness of advertising dropped at both ages; and at both ages, the announcements lowered children's estimates of the flavor of the two advertised food products but did not influence feelings about how much fun the game would be or the rank of any of the three products versus competitors.

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