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Examines how much attention urban mainland Chinese children pay to television commercials, their response to different types of commercials, and their perceptions of the quality of advertised and non‐advertised brands. Classifies the types of commercials seen as funny, animated, public service, celebrity endorsements, and those that increase knowledge, and relates these types to the four age groups of the children studied. Concludes that children pay a decreasing amount of attention to commercials as they get older, and that the link between liking a commercial and impulse buying of its product also lessens; confidence in advertised brands does not increase with age, but confidence in non‐advertised brands decreases with age.

The aim of this article is to explore children's understanding of television advertising intent.

A different perspective on advertising intent is offered in this paper, as evidenced in an interpretive study of Irish children, aged between seven and nine years. A qualitative approach was employed, involving a series of focus group discussions and in‐depth interviews with 52 children.

The findings indicate that the participating children view advertising as serving interests including, but not limited to, the advertiser. The existence of other interested parties is suggested by the children, namely the agendas of viewers and television channels. The authors assert that these children view advertising as being larger and more complex than the advertiser's perspective, which has been the traditional focus in the extant research.

Adopting an advertising literacy perspective, the authors seek to explore children's “reading” and understanding of advertising. Advertising literacy is an approach to understanding advertising that has not received substantial attention in the child‐advertising literature. The literature to date has tended to focus on the following question – do children understand the persuasive intent of advertising? This question is suggestive of a “yes/no” answer. In contrast, the authors view the concept of understanding as being more complex and multi‐faceted, and accordingly, seek to develop this concept by way of a classification that suggests four different levels of understanding that children may exhibit towards advertising

Explores the attitudes to TV advertising of Chinese children, the “little emperors/empresses“ who now have enormous influence on the market, largely as a result of the one‐child policy that China adopted in 1979; like children elsewhere, they appear to pay less attention to commercials as they get older and become more sceptical about their truthfulness. Outlines the methodology used in the research, differences between Hong Kong and mainland children, children’s favourite commercials, and their views of advertised versus non‐advertised brands. Moves on to regulation of children’s advertising: unlike many Western countries, there is a lack of specific regulation of TV advertising to children, and the rapid though uneven growth of TV advertising in China has led to irresponsible practices.

Describes how educational media company Sesame Workshop has applied research to the development and evaluation of children’s TV programming; Sesame Workshop was the creator in 1969 of the “Sesame Street” TV series, which intentionally blended entertainment and education, and it has now teamed up with Applied Research and Consulting LLC (ARC). Explains the historical background to television research, and the development by Sesame Workshop and ARC of New Kid City, a prototype media environment for children, and later of Noggin, an interactive “place to go” with a website and children’s TV channel. Illustrates the application of the Sesame Workshop approach in one of its programmes, “Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim”, which is aimed at Israeli and Arab/Palestinian children.

The purpose of this paper is to describe exploratory work which investigated the negative effects of television commercials on children in the Middle East.

The extant literature on issues relating to the effects of television advertising on children was critically reviewed. Data were collected by conducting a series of 15 projective techniques and a series of semi‐structured interviews with a sample of 12 parents and six psychology and marketing experts from the Middle East.

The results indicate that negative impacts of advertising lead to major social and behavioral problems in children such as physical and verbal violence, materialism and other “values issues” identified by parents, and health problems such as low nutrition and obesity. The results also indicate that although many forms of advertisement affect children negatively, the effects of television commercials are particularly noticeable.

The study provides a list of practical recommendations for marketers and policymakers to help mitigate the negative effects of television advertising on children in the Middle East.

This research is one of very few studies to consider the effects of television advertising on children in the Middle East.

This paper seeks to report from a qualitative study of the global television concept Pop Idol with the aim of evaluating children's and teenagers' involvement as consumers, both in their roles in purchasing goods and services, and being targets for well‐designed promotional activities.

Based on content analysis and interviews with children, the paper analyses the dynamics between marketing strategies, program content and child audiences.

The paper discusses how young consumers distinguish between two “regimes of truth” in the television concept: first the creation of a superstar, and second the broader phenomenon that Pop Idol represents, which is mainly about creating consumers through participation.

The paper contributes to acknowledging children's perspectives and childhood as not only valuable but necessary to inform consumer research, since children are deeply and unavoidably enmeshed in consumption in fundamental ways.

This paper aims to identify the different types of food featured on children's television in the UK and how frequently they appear.

A content analysis of children's television across four popular UK channels (CBBC, CBeebies, CiTV, Five) was carried out in Autumn 2008. All output including programmes, advertisements, sponsorship, trailers and idents was examined for verbal and visual instances of food and drink. Food and drink mentions were classified according to food categories.

The results showed a high incidence of food across the different kinds of output and across the four channels. In programmes, food mentions were skewed towards healthy (68.7 per cent v. 31.3 per cent) rather than unhealthy foods. The most frequent categories of food were fruit and vegetables, desserts, and grains.

The findings presented here are based on four channels, and analysis of 84 hours of television content aimed at children. The study represents a qualitative picture based on a limited sample at a specific point in time.

The results demonstrate that Ofcom's latest UK guidelines on television advertising of HFSS foods are being adhered to during children's programmes, and question whether programming and other types of output offer a positive or negative view of food and whether they too require intervention.

The results widen the debate about obesity and television advertising by considering the importance of editorial content and other marketing communications in terms of food portrayal on children's television.

This paper aims to examine how parental mediation of children's television viewing varies among urban and rural children in China.

A survey of 1,056 children ages 6 to 14 in nine Chinese provinces was conducted. Independent sample t‐tests were performed to make rural‐urban comparisons. Correlation analyses were provided on the relationships between parental mediation styles and children's television usage, and between parental mediation styles and children's purchase request.

The paper finds that urban parents engage in more instructive mediation and restrictive mediation than rural parents. Urban parents use restrictive mediation the more often, while rural parents use co‐viewing the more frequently. Only urban children's television viewing has a significantly positive relationship with co‐viewing with their parents. In general, children's purchase request is positively related to parental mediation styles in rural and urban China (except for restrictive mediation in rural areas).

The study is based on an analysis of secondary data. Future studies should adopt established scales of parental mediation styles for the Chinese context.

The findings should help public policy makers understand the dynamic parents‐children interactions with television, and help marketers find effective and efficient ways to reach young Chinese consumers.

The study represents a preliminary effort to examine the antecedents of television parental mediation, its occurrence, and its potential effects in the Chinese context.

Explores the world of infant research, focusing on a recent study of the behaviour and attitudes of preschool children to interactive digital television. Outlines the basis for the research, including the attempt to identify the physical and sensual nature of the very young children involved, rather than relying on what their mothers said. Explains the two methodologies used: sofa sessions and “tea and TV” sessions. Concludes that the research methods gave rich results: mothers were educated about their children’s abilities to cope with interactive TV, and the exercise showed how familiarity could bring both children and adults into contact with new technologies.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

A persistent grumble of “baby boomers” is that younger generations, including those who are now students, are more materialistic they used to be. There us perhaps a grain of truth in this, although to be excessively censorious might be unfair; we now live in a more materialistic world and the “baby boomers”, as students, had better state support than today's undergraduates. It was perhaps easier to take a non‐materialist stance in those days.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.