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Connor Cheng

Professor De Piero

English 015

28 November 2018

How does the contribution of social media/marketing play a role in how businesses promote

themselves to teenagers?

Calvert, Sandra L. "Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing." The Future of

Children, vol. 18, no. 1, 2008, pp. 205-234.

Calvert explains into detail that many businesses target young consumers and in fact,

there are details of which researched that have been trending. “First, both the discretionary

income of children and their power to influence parent purchases have increased over time.

Second, as the enormous increase in the number of available television channels has led to

smaller audiences for each channel, digital interactive technologies have simultaneously opened

new routes to narrowcast to children, thereby creating a growing media space just for children

and children’s products” (205). One way researchers found information was in the form of online

media and entertainment such as television “Using content analysis, researchers examine large

samples of television programs and online websites and games, focusing on the nature of the

products advertised, the production techniques used, and, in the case of television

advertisements, the length of the commercials” (212). As they go more into the depth of

television research, more specifically the advertisements. They have found that “They found that
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75 percent of all advertisements they examined featured sugar-coated cereals, sugared drinks,

and snacks, and fast foods.75 Sugar-coated cereals, snacks, and drinks dominated advertisements

on the major broadcasters; toys” (212). The use of content analysis was very interesting and

important to their research and to conclude have found that many of the food advertisements

were filled with, low nutritional food, colorful and bold characters that grabbed many young

consumers attention.

Duffett, Rodney G. "Influence of Social Media Marketing Communications on Young

Consumers’ Attitudes." Young Consumers, vol. 18, no. 1, 2017, pp. 19-39.

Duffett aimed the research to figure out how the effects of social media can play a role on

young consumers brains and attitudes. Duffett has found that most importantly, how the play of

devices can change the consumers' attitude component. “Social media marketing

communications resulted in the most positive cognitive and affective attitudinal responses when

accessed via mobile devices” (27). One of their research methods concluded of

“Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the respondents to immediately complete

by themselves, which allowed for more accurate answers” (24). As they continued the

experiment with this method, this allowed them to grab the most accurate amount of information

because they knew that not everyone can answer the question or it can be very confusing. To

conclude the experiment resulted in young consumers with an attitude only among the

consumers with frequent media use. “The results also revealed that teenagers who used social

media for long time periods; updated their profiles frequently and were from the Colored and
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Black population groups, displayed the most favorable attitudinal responses to social media

marketing communications” (19).

Evans, W. D. "Social Marketing Campaigns and Children's Media use." The Future of Children,

vol. 18, no. 1, 2008, pp. 181-203.

Evan identifies and examined the detail of how media is used for marketing and

techniques of which can affect young consumers. “The results also revealed that teenagers who

used social media for long time periods; updated their profiles frequently and were from the

Colored and Black population groups, displayed the most favorable attitudinal responses to

social media marketing communications” (181). Evan’s research methods include many of which

to condone his research. “He reviews the evidence from a number of major recent campaigns and

programming in the United States and overseas and describes the evaluation and research

methods used to determine their effectiveness” (181). He explains into further detail that not all

marketing and their techniques are bad for consumers especially the young consumers. “In

general, these studies show that social marketing has successfully changed health behavior such

as smoking, physical activity, and condom use, as well as behavioral mediators such as

knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs related to these behaviors. Most of these studies, however, have

shown effect sizes of less than 10 percent” (189).

Mas-Tur, Alicia, Ana Tur-Porcar, and Anna Llorca. "Social Media Marketing for

Adolescents."Psychology & Marketing, vol. 33, no. 12, 2016, pp. 1119-1125.
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Mas-Tur’s main argument was to figure out how social media is used to identify the traits

that characterize young consumers. One of their research methods used for this experiment was

the “The fsQCA (fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis)is a variant of the QCA method,

which is based on the definition of the conditions that form configurations leading to an outcome

of interest” (1120). Their main experiment and result were to “provide a preliminary assessment

of the family traits of adolescents who use social media to a greater extent” (1123). While

businesses use the information provided, it also is very beneficial to not only the consumer but

the company. Noted in the research “The Internet allows companies to develop so “one-to-one”

marketing, and to maintain personalized relationships with each of their customers, which

improves the customer’s opinion” (1123), it allows the company to work harder and figure out

what the consumers want that will make them happier.

Thomas, Samantha L., et al. "Young People's Awareness of the Timing and Placement of

Gambling Advertising on Traditional and Social Media Platforms: A Study of

11-16-Year-Olds in Australia." Harm Reduction Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, 2018, pp. 51.

Thomas identifies the issues of how the time and place of advertisements on social media

can affect the awareness of younger consumers. The research is noted that they use the

methodology of “interviewer-administered survey of gambling attitudes and advertising

recall of 11- to 16-years-old in Victoria, Australia” (4). The research was also aimed

toward one side “research has been substantially skewed towards boys who are fans of

major sporting codes, with limited research on whether girls are also influenced by

gambling advertising” (2). They did this to narrow down the search and primarily “This
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was important in understanding whether young people were exposed to gambling

advertising when viewing sports-related content on social media” (4), to inquire the fact

that consumers wanted to find a free way of viewing sports live without paying and

granted the fact that the free websites had many advertisements that prompted

information on how they can start.