Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Trimester 3 2009/2010
PBL2
CHILDREN AS CONSUMERS
GROUP 6
KUAN YEN NEE (GM03698)
TUNG WAI CHEE (GM03578)
YONG AI LEE (GM03633)
CHEE JINQ SHYAN (GM03528)
5.0 Appendix 8
2
1.0 LEARNING ISSUES
1. What is a child?
A child (plural: children) is a human stages between birth and puberty. In Malaysia, the legal definition
of "child" (Age of Majority Act 1971) generally refers to a minor or a person younger than the age of
majority (below the age of 18 years). Biologically, a child is anyone in the developmental stage of
childhood, between infancy and adulthood.
2. What is children’s consumer socialization process?
The children’s consumer socialization process defined as the process by which children acquire the
skills, knowledge, attitudes, and experiences necessary to function as consumers. This process is shaped
by a number of sociocultural sources including parents, peers, school, shopping experiences and the
mass media. Inevitably, the process is also influenced by prevailing state of the local, national and
global economy.
3.0 ANALYSIS
3.1 Analysis On Problem Statement 1
Factors Details
Geographic Urban, Suburban and Small Towns
Demographic:
1. Population 0 – 4 years old (3.29 million)
Projection 5 – 9 years old (3.05 million) about 41% of
by Age in 2010 Malaysia
10 – 14 years old (2.82 million)
(based on 2000 total population
Population census) 15 – 19 years old (2.65 million)
Factors Details
Psychographic:
1. Social Class Upper, Middle and Lower Social Class
2. Culture Collectivist (Keshavarz S. and Baharudin R., 2009)
2. Family Orphan, Single Parent, Nucleus and Extended Family
Life Cycle (mainly with Generation X parent)
visualizers
Boys and Girls both watch 5 – 6 hours of television (alone and with
others) during school day/weekends (even more than housewives). Both
gender love watching cartoons, but girls also preferred dramas and
movies while boys yield to thrillers. As a child gets older, preference for
cartoon decrease. Instead, they watch dramas, movies, comedy and
variety shows (Nik Rahimah Nik Yacob et al, 1996).
digital natives – electronic gadgets savvy (internet, computers, mobile
phones, etc)
3. Lifestyle
Source: www.marketingcharts.com
homework
reader – fiction and non-fiction books, newspaper, magazines, comics
extra classes – ballet, abacus, mental counting, swimming, etc
Gamers – play video game
4. Personality Little Greenies – support green movement
Traits Social Networkers – communicates online
Team Players – play sport
5. Idol television characters (cartoon)
6. Socialization family members, teachers, neighbours
Agent
4
Factors Details
Behavior:
1. User Status First-Time, Regular, Ex-Users
2. Usage Rate Regular, Moderate, Infrequent
among global kids (slowly creeping into Malaysia): Toys and Candy tops
spending lists but video games triumphant all avenue among Boys.
Source: www.marketingcharts.com
3. Spending Avenue
other among local kids: stationeries for Girls and sport magazines for Boys1
4. Loyalty Status Innovators (attract to and like to try new things)
1
Source: focus group with GSM-UPM MBA mothers
5
parents (especially mothers) are powerful agents because they normally took their children shopping
from 2 – 3 years of age onwards and often explain to them what they are doing. By the time the child
reached 9 years, most have acquired fairly sophisticated consumption orientations though it may
differ by gender and social class.
modeling/observation learning
A child imitates the agent behaviour (e.g. buying the brands that parents buy). Research has indicated
that unknowingly, parents frequently instruct their children about the household brand preferences
without letting potential young consumers observe their own choices (Bahn, 1987).
reinforcement
Whenever a child’s request is fulfil – with intention to please the child, to reward them or simply
because the products is inexpensive and deem suitable – repetition of behaviour (request) is encourage.
On the contrary, with reference to Figure 3, mothers’ refusals might lead to argument or anger from the
child. However, if the mothers imply negative reinforcement (e.g. just keep quiet or walk away), the
child’s unreasonable request for consumption will be future discourage.
social interaction
A child social interaction with his/her surrounding greatly influences consumption. Take Figure 4 and
Figure 5 in Appendices for example, kids that had taste and experience good food at his/her friends
home will eagerly tell her family members about it. Gradually, it changes the buying and consumption
process of a household. Similarly, one household2 reveal that the kids initiated the boycott on companies
that support Israel based on a list circulating on the Internet.
Apart from the consumer socialization process, several other factors that determine children influence
in consumption are:
encouragement and opportunity provided by parents and society to self consume
Children are free to use their pocket money before and after school hours plus light meals during
recess. Sometimes, they run errands for nucleus or extended family members.
Nucleus family household with double income enrich and empower kids with money. They are
mostly also free from scrutiny on eating habits – resulting in malnutrition or overweight.
The status of the only child at home make it not possible to have “hand-me-down” resulting in kids
demanding for “all the best things in the world”.
Children from broken homes or under single parent had to assume the role of substitute “father”,
“mother” or protective/providing elder siblings which control the household purchase at a tender age.
abundance of advertising
Children are vulnerable to advertisement whenever they are on screen (television or computer). They are
also exposed when they co-shopping with family members or out for outing (cinema, park etc) or simple
leisure activities (radio, read newspaper, magazines and comics).
2
Source: focus group with GSM-UPM MBA mothers
6
3.3 Analysis On Problem Statement 3
Children serves as a double market – the present market for all the products which are meant for them at
this age (toys, eatables, books, clothes etc) and secondly the future market for most goods and services. To
gain an upper hand on the latter, marketers must thoroughly know the children present status and predict on
possible future challenges posed by these soon-to-be adult consumers:
children of today belongs to Generation Y and Z which are innovators and low brand loyalty
Little Greenies do not only support green activities, they also live healthy – a threat to the fast food
(and unhealthy) industry
digital natives are technology savvy which also served as viral marketing – blogging, social media
with higher spending power gain from higher income (upon higher education), Gen X and Y naturally
will demand high quality yet cheap goods
minimize ads exposure (selective attention) in the future:
someone might online 24/7 but they do not necessarily log on intended websites
viewers can zip and zap off ads on television with tools like TiVo
patrons of hypermarkets protect their privacy by refusing retails monitor their consumption database
too many ads to notice (higher just notice difference, absolute threshold) cluttering around – resulting
in “drown” or wear out effect
the unpopular or possible extinction of traditional print media (although now it is “not yet dead” in
Malaysia) making it harder to promote high involvement product that works better with central route to
persuasion
4.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
Some recommendations for marketers targeting the children of today are as such:
Products – as innovative as possible because Generation X and Y are Innovators
Place
ensure no interruption in inventory in all outlets of purchase (including virtual market)
place ads or organize public relation in youth oriented place/activities (e.g. concert, cinema, shopping
complexes, cyber café, mamak chain etc)
Advertising and Promotion
creative ads that ensure carryover effect to make "hostage" of the children consumer
channel of advertising have to be on spot channel (e.g. Astro) rather than network channel (e.g. ntv7)
as kids of today prefer pay/cable TV over free channel
for high involvement product, use public ads that direct consumers to particular website/hotline
repetitive integrated communication tools (IMC) to product brand equity and publicity
Price – reasonable yet can charge premium for those who is not that price sensitive
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5.0 APPENDICES
8
Figure 4: The family food model taking the perspective of children’s direct participation and
influence based on the family model originally developed by (Jensen, 1990)
Figure 5: Hypothesized interaction between food availability, children’s lifestyle choices, food intake
behavior, food consumption, exercise and weight status.