PREKĖS ŽENKLO POVEIKIS VAIKO VARTOTOJO ELGSENAI

Abstract

Children growing in the consumer-oriented society acquire materialism-oriented value system that stimulates using and having more. Children perceive their environment faster; they acquire self-sufficiency and logical thinking quicker, and have ability to make decisions earlier. This new generation is treated as separate and valuable market segment among marketers and different marketing strategies are developed for it.
The problem. In recent years, the role of children as consumer is continuously growing. The context of scientific research allows to envisage some research directions, oriented to children cognition: 1) child culture, identity formation, socialisation and self-expression (Roedder-John (1999), Cowell (2001), Piaget (2002); Lindstrom (2004), Minnini (2005), Thomas (2008), Rodhain (2008), Arrington (2008)), and 2) children influence on parents‘ buying decision making (Lindstrom (2004), Gotze, Prange and Uhrovska (2005), Ekstrom (2005), Beder (2006), Calvert (2008), Thomas (2008)). The main conclusion from these researches is that brand has a big impact on the formation of child personality and that children spend a big amount of money on brands through their parents. However, analysis of scientific literature allows indicating the lack of deeper recognition of a child as a target customer. Accordingly, the research problem in this article is formulated as the following question: what is the brand impact on the behaviour of a child as a consumer?
Research objective is to validate theoretically and empirically the brand impact on a behaviour of a child – consumer.
Research subject – brand impact on a child–consumer.
Research methods. The article was prepared with the comparable and systematic analysis of scientific literature. Empirical research on brand influence to child-consumer was performed employing the qualitative research methods (focus group discussions and depth interviews).
Research results. Brand influences child popularity in his/her environment, tells about the role of a child at home, school and society, explains how children see and express themselves. Brand highlights the financial status. Results of the empirical research showed that a „popular“ child is friendly, shows good results in studies, and has his/her own opinion. In addition children form their popularity with fashionable clothing and modern technologies. Seeking for desirable product, children influence parents’ decision using such tactics as persecuting, rational persuasion and resemble. The main communication agents are parents, friends, schoolfellows and elder brothers and sisters. The influence is different depending on product group and fashion. Despite the popularity of internet, TV commercials, movies, celebrities and journals have the biggest impact on brand selection. With a brand children create popularity and self-confidence, seek for being noticed and recognition among friends, by feeling themselves as being „cool“ and „popular“.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.17.2.2191