Young children as consumers: their vulnerability to persuasion and its effect on their choices

The children’s market is estimated at $300 billion a year. Most new growth will be from high population countries with a large proportion of children like China, India and Indonesia. In 2014, these three countries together had over 230 million babies and children under the age of five – this is equal to almost 75% of the US population. Can present Western-based findings be generalized to these developing cultures? New multicultural findings are discussed in this chapter. The research on children as consumers is also evolving from early interest in how children are exposed and respond to advertising on television; to their present vulnerability to online marketing tools like mobile game apps and advergames. Future research will also try to understand why young (3 to 8 years) children’s vulnerability, measured as their persuasive knowledge, is rarely related to their responses to marketing like preference for an item or pestering of parents for it. Finally, the evidence for the effects of children’s pestering their parents for an item is largely anecdotal, with new research attempting to better quantify its use, effectiveness and implications for a healthy life.