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This study aims to examine factors affecting Chinese adolescents’ purchase intention for local brands; this study focuses on the effects of perceived social status value and materialistic values.

A theoretical model relating perceived social status value of brands to purchase intention, including materialistic values as a moderator, was developed and tested, using a sample of 587 Chinese adolescent respondents. Another experimental study examined the variability of the moderation of materialistic values across different levels of peer pressure in a product usage occasion.

Perceived social status value associated with local and foreign brands significantly influences purchase intention for local brands. Moreover, influence of perceived social status value of local versus foreign brands on local brand purchase intention is greater for materialistic adolescents. Additionally, the moderation of materialistic values is found in a product usage occasion with high peer pressure, but not in an occasion with low peer pressure.

The findings show that perceived social status value associated with brands shapes purchase intention for local brands. The moderating effect of materialistic values is complex and suggests further research. The study’s scope is limited to Chinese adolescents.

The findings provide understanding of the drivers of purchase intention, and thus serve as a guideline for Chinese firms and foreign marketers seeking to enter the growing Chinese market, as well as consumer educators in China.

This study contributes to the limited empirical research into the factors shaping country-of-origin effects. Moreover, the findings suggest the need to consider the moderating role of materialistic values on purchase intention for local brands.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the web search behavior of adolescents from a Chinese secondary school and the factors affecting this behavior.

A controlled experiment was conducted to collect data on adolescents’ background and their web search behavior. A total of 48 students were asked to perform three different search tasks on the internet within a limited time, and were then interviewed by researchers.

The results revealed three characteristics of Chinese adolescents’ main behavior during the search process: mental set during the search process, poor information search skills, and poor ability to process the search results. In addition, this research found that cognitive style had only minor influence on students’ use of embedded links. However, grade and task type had a significant impact on their search performance and behavior. In general, high school students performed better than middle school students, and adolescents acted differently when completing different tasks.

This research sheds light on Chinese middle and high school students’ search behavior on the web. It also investigates how cognitive style, grade, and task type influence students’ online search behavior.

The purpose of this study is to replicate a psychographic segmentation of adolescent girls in Hong Kong. It attempts to see if the segmentation of Hong Kong girls according to the perceptions of gender roles and ideal female images can be generalized to girls in Mainland China.

A convenience sample of 331 Shanghai female secondary school students aged 12 to 20 were asked to answer questions about gender roles, ideal female images, and their liking of international and Chinese brands. Factor analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis were conducted.

Four segments of adolescent girls were identified and profiled. They were conformists, aggressive pursuers, image protectors, and single-handers.

The data were collected from a non-probabilistic sample of girls from Shanghai, which may not be representative of girls in other Mainland Chinese cities or elsewhere in greater China.

Different marketing communication strategies can be adopted to make global and Chinese national brands more appealing to the different clusters.

This has been the first study to cluster adolescent girls in Mainland China based on gender role perceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore Chinese adolescents' engagement in social comparison of material possessions using qualitative inquiries.

In total, 64 Chinese adolescents aged 13‐17 were face‐to‐face interviewed. They were asked whether they engaged in social comparison of possessions with direct and vicarious role models such as media celebrities. Characteristics of role models and products involved in social comparison were inquired.

The research found that adolescents in Hong Kong frequently engaged in upward social comparison with friends and classmates. The products involved in social comparison were branded public goods that can be used to communicate ideal social self‐image. There was a strong link between social comparison and peer communication about consumption. Adolescents less often engaged in social comparison with media celebrities. This can be attributed to lack of resources, understanding of product sponsorship, and difficulties in identifying with the media celebrities. Role models of the same sex and similar age were often used for social comparison. Social comparison is used mainly for self‐enhancement, rather than self‐evaluation.

The study was from a convenient sample of adolescents in Hong Kong, a Chinese city with high advancement in terms of economic and advertising development when compared with most other Chinese cities.

This is the first qualitative study on Chinese adolescents' engagement in social comparison of material possessions.

This qualitative descriptive study seeks to understand how the reading motivation of three Chinese students from different reading achievement groups evolved as they moved from the fourth to the sixth grade. This study is informed both by Tierney's framework of global meaning making and Chinese relational epistemology. We recruited these students from a representative K-9 public school located in a metropolitan city in China and conducted two semistructured interviews, the first in fourth grade with a follow-up in sixth grade, during which we asked the same three students to share their stories about their reading experiences and what motivated them to read. Using the constant comparison method and thematic analysis, we analyzed the data and identified critical themes related to the factors that shaped the students' attitudes and motivation toward reading and literacy. This study uncovers several unique patterns of motivation development among Chinese early adolescent students in different achievement groups. Our findings also resulted in a new relational model of reading motivation development within the Chinese sociocultural context.

This study aims to investigate dimensions related to the gender role and identity perceptions of adolescent girls in Hong Kong. It also aims to develop a typology based on the dimensions and to examine its ability to predict brand relationship variables.

A convenience sample of 355 Hong Kong female secondary school students aged 12 to 19 were asked to answer questions about gender roles and identities, ideal female images, and liking of global brands. A segmentation approach was employed to classify the respondents.

Four distinct clusters of adolescent girls were identified and profiled. They were Middle of the roaders, Achievers, Conservatives, and Inactives.

Understanding the unique characteristics of the clusters and the similarities and differences among them can enhance the targeting of marketing communication to adolescent girls, including the selection of celebrity presenters and visual images.

This was the first study to segment Chinese adolescent girls using gender roles and ideal female images.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultivation effects of television advertising viewing on the perceived affluence in society and the materialistic value orientations among adolescents in urban and rural China.

The paper shows that a survey of 646 adolescents aged 11 to 17, in Guangzhou City, and in a rural county of Henan Province, was conducted in 2006. Constructs were measured using established scales.

Television advertising viewing demonstrated first‐ and second‐order cultivation effects among urban as well as rural respondents. Heavy television advertising viewers were more likely to have a higher perceived affluence than light television advertising viewers. Heavy television advertising viewers were also more materialistic than light television advertising viewers. When television‐advertising viewing was controlled, urban respondents had a higher perceived affluence, while rural respondents had a higher level of materialism.

Students in grades 7 and 8 were examined only. A convenient sampling method was adopted. The city selected for the study is highly advanced in terms of economical and advertising development compared with most other Chinese cities.

Rural adolescents did not hold strong beliefs about prevalence of affluence in society. Popularity appeal may not be a fruitful marketing communication strategy for durable goods for them. Different marketing communication strategies should be adopted for the urban and rural adolescents as target audience.

The paper is a pioneer work on the study of consumption values of adolescents in urban and rural China.

The purpose of this study is to explore the association between eating patterns, social identity and the well-being of adolescents via a mixed methods study of Chinese teenagers. The specific research questions presented in this study are as follows: What is the relationship between social eating and well-being? How is the relationship between social eating and well-being mediated by social identity?

This study is based on a sequential mixed methods study, including interviews with 16 teenage–parent dyads, and a large-scale survey of over 1,000 teenagers on their eating patterns, conducted with the support of public schools. A model that tests relationships among social eating, social identity and subjective well-being is developed and tested.

The results show that dining with family members leads to improved subjective well-being for teenagers, through a partial mediator of stronger family identity. However, dining with peers is not found to influence subjective well-being.

The privileged position of family meals demonstrated through this study may be an artifact of the location of this study in one Chinese city. Further research is needed related to the connections among social identity, objective well-being and the social patterns of teenagers’ food consumption behavior.

To improve the subjective well-being of teenagers, families, public policy-makers and food marketers should support food consumption patterns that promote family meals.

While many food-related consumer studies focus on the individual, social and environmental influences of food choices of adolescents, few studies address how eating patterns affect overall well-being. These results reinforce the importance of understanding the effect of the social context of teenagers’ eating patterns on health and well-being.

This article aims to explore attitudinal and behavioural differences between target and non‐target groups of ethnic advertisements. It seeks to expand the existing body of knowledge by investigating these differences from the perspective of young consumers in an Eastern context. This helps in testing the established theories of distinctiveness and cultural schemas in an Eastern society.

The study sample consists of 1,600 randomly selected adolescents from different states of Malaysia. Data were analysed using MANOVA, ANOVA and t‐test to explore the group differences between adolescents based on their ethnicity and advertisement type.

The results indicate a significant group difference between target and non‐target respondents to the advertisement. It also shows that ethnicity is a viable target variable for both majority and minority ethnic groups in Malaysia.

Although there are many ethnic groups in Malaysia this research only investigated two ethnic groups. Therefore, the results may not be applicable to other ethnic minority groups in Malaysia.

The study explores the possibility of using ethnicity as a target variable for adolescents in an Eastern context. It investigates the issue in a holistic manner by incorporating views from target as well as non‐target groups.

A qualitative study by autovideography was conducted to examine adolescent girls' negotiation of their gender roles through the consumption of advertising images. This paper aims to document the study.

In total, 20 adolescent girls aged 15 to 18 in Hong Kong were asked to take pictures from the media that could illustrate “what girls or women should or should not be and what girls or women should or should not do”. Advertising images captured by the interviewees and their interpretations of those images were analyzed.

Seven dominant themes were isolated from the interpretations: appearance; personality; skills and work; activities, interests and lifestyle; family; health and safety; and caring for people and the environment. The findings show that adolescent girls pay much attention to images about slimming, body image and physical appearance. They criticized female images in ads as unrealistic but identified with female images that were natural and conventional.

The interviewees were recruited from two secondary schools that may not have been representative. The interviews were conducted in English, which may have caused some of the participants to be reticent about presenting their viewpoints. The implications represent a step forward in relation to how media influence young consumers and how teenagers perceive and intercept what they see in the media.

The paper shows that collecting and interpreting female visual images can illustrate vividly the process of gender socialization.