Analysis of child psychology and its role in marketing of chocolates

Abstract

Background: Literature exists on the developmental stages of children and how they are influenced by parents and peers in decision making. Parents’ attitude towards brand communication has a significant controlling effect on the child’s attitude towards the brand. “Pester Power” has been given due importance in accommodating for the influence that children have over parents as well. The aim of this study is to understand the role of external factors that influence a child’s attitude towards a popular chocolate brand and how the relationship exists among all these factors at different levels. Methods: Hypotheses were developed to understand the role of peers, parents and advertisements. A conceptual model depicting the same was developed and for testing purposes, data were drawn from a random sample of 112 middle school children in the city of Bangalore. The sample consisted of children of both gender (~50% each) with an average age of 12.5 years. The survey questionnaire consisted of 26 questions of which about five were lifestyle-based questions to understand the sample better. Most others were used a 7-scale Likert scale to measure the variables mentioned in the above section. The questionnaire was administered by the teachers of these children. Results: The data analysis was done in three stages. Firstly, the normality of the variables was checked using skewness and kurtosis statistics. A few variables showed deviation from normality and it was concluded that a better sample size would lead to more accurate results. Secondly, one-sample t-test was conducted to identify the independent variables which would influence the attitude towards brand. A test-value of 4 was used, with confidence intervals maintained at 95%. In the final step, regression models were built to predict the three components of attitude towards brand. Following this, inferences were drawn to support or reject our hypothesis. Conclusion: Children in this age group tend to spend more time with peers than watching TV or with parents and hence are influence more my peers than any others. They tend to actively seek opinions from peers and succumb to peer-pressure in order to fit in. Advertisements also influence the attitude towards brand to a great extent while parental influence in minimal in this category. Recommendations to enhance attitude towards brand have been made taking into account these inferences.