Children’s Advertising: Materialism and Caused Conflicts with Parents
Children’s Advertising: Materialism and Caused Conflicts with Parents

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays children are highly influenced by advertising messages, most notably for their naivety towards the outside world, the absence of critical attitude and non-possession of appropriate information about the advertised product. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of audio-visual and print advertising in the creation of materialistic values and conflicts of parents with younger and older elementary school children. The sample consists of 338 pupils from primary schools in Belgrade and 158 parents of children included in the study. A survey with multiple choice questions and the Likert scale has been applied. It has been partially confirmed that the exposure to an advertising message inevitably leads to a conflict between the child and a parent (primarily due to the increased number of requests for children who would like to possess the previously advertised products). The results also show that exposure to the advertising message causes a child to frequently request parents to purchase desired products (which is important for the determination of the degree of child depression facing the lack of buying the desired product). Finally, advertising aimed at the youngest ones stimulates and increases the materialistic values in children. The above-mentioned negative effects of advertising to children can be minimized by better legal framework, intensive monitoring and control of commercials, greater responsibility of the media and the introduction of media literacy into the educational process.

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