The Aad-Ab-PI relationship in children: The impact of brand familiarity and measurement timing

Given the explosion of research in the past decade that has examined the Aad-Ab-PI relationship using adult subjects, one would expect to see an almost parallel stream of research involving children. However, as is evident in Brown and Stayman's (1992) meta-analysis of the literature, no studies investigating this area have used children as the sample. This study provides an initial exploration into the Aad-Ab-PI relationship in children with specific focus given to the impact of brand familiarity and measurement timing while controlling for prior brand attitudes. Forty-three third graders and sixty-eight sixth graders participated in a 2 × 2 factorial experiment that manipulated brand familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) and measurement timing (immediate vs. delayed). Similar to the results using adult subjects, the children's Aad measures significantly affected Ab for both familiar and unfamiliar brands, even after controlling for prior brand attitude. However, contrary to adult responses, the children's Aad had a significant, albeit modest, impact on their PI responses. Based on these results, the paper offers implications for marketers and public policy makers and questions for future research. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.