Advertising to Children: Findings and Implications

This article presents a review of the area of advertising to children. Previous research in the area can be divided into three categories: 1) children's exposure to advertising, 2) communication process effects, comprised of attention, comprehension, retention, and information processing, and 3) communication outcome effects, which includes the impact of advertising on children's attitudes and behavior relating to the products/services advertised, and the influence of advertising on parent-child relations and socialization of children. This article reviews the findings in each of these categories. The final section offers a summary of these findings and discusses the implications for advertising, public policy, and future research.