The impact of brand advertising on children's food preferences and behavioural intentions: an experimental study.

OBJECTIVE

Despite strong evidence linking exposure to food and beverage marketing with poor diet quality and negative health impacts in children, the effect of brand marketing (i.e. marketing featuring branded content, but no food products) is uncertain. This study evaluated the impact of brand marketing product-based advertising on children's food preferences and behavioural intentions.

DESIGN

An online survey was administered to participants randomised to one of four ad conditions; familiar product (i.e. from popular Canadian brands); familiar brand (i.e. no food product, Canadian brand); unfamiliar product (i.e. foreign products); and unfamiliar brand ad (i.e. foreign brand). Participants viewed three ads displaying features of that condition and answered three 5-point Likert-scale questions related to the study outcomes: food preference, purchase intent and pester power. The average of all outcomes determined the total impact. An ANOVA with Bonferroni tests evaluated differences in impact between conditions.

SETTING

Canada participants: 1341 Canadian children (9-12 years).

RESULTS

Familiar product ads had a higher total impact on children (mean score 3·57) compared with familiar brand ads (2·88), unfamiliar brand ads (3·24) or unfamiliar product ads (3·09; < 0·001 for all pairwise comparisons). Total impact was lower for familiar brand ads than for unfamiliar brand ads or unfamiliar product ads ( < 0·001 for all pairwise comparisons). The impact of an unfamiliar brand and product did not differ ( = 0·53).

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest that familiar product ads seem to have a stronger impact on children's food preferences and behavioural intentions than familiar brand ads, unfamiliar brand ads and unfamiliar product ads.