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This paper aims to examine how gender differs in environmental attitude, environmental concern, perceived seriousness of environmental problems, perceived environmental responsibility, peer influence, self identity in environmental protection and green purchasing behavior in Hong Kong adolescent consumers.

A total of 6,010 (2,975 males and 3,035 females) adolescents in Hong Kong were recruited through multi‐staged random sampling. Surveys were distributed through 48 high schools in Hong Kong.

Female adolescents scored significantly higher in environmental attitude, environmental concern, perceived seriousness of environmental problems, perceived environmental responsibility, peer influence and green purchasing behavior than male adolescents in Hong Kong. In contrast, male adolescents' average score on self‐identity in environmental protection was significantly higher than that of the female adolescents.

A major limitation lies in the self‐reported nature of survey used in the study. Future study should include some objective assessments (such as observations or other‐reported survey) of the subjects' green purchasing and environmental behaviors.

This study should provide a useful source of information for international green marketers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong female adolescents constitute a potentially good market for green products. Marketing messages targeting this group should use emotional appeals, emphasize individual responsibility to protect the environment, and facilitate peer networking to spread good word‐of‐mouth.

This paper offers practical guidelines to international green marketers who are planning to target the Asian markets.

Reports research on the degree to which UK adolescents feel they have an impact on decision making within their families, and the extent to which adolescents and parents agree or disagree with the adolescent’s perceived influence when purchasing products;most previous research has concentrated on children rather than adolescents. Discusses the concept of consumer socialisation, i.e. the process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge and attitude relevant to their functioning as consumers; although parents are the foremost influences in this, there is also reverse socialisation, where children use their product knowledge to influence parents’ decisions. Distinguishes between socio‐oriented and concept‐oriented parental communication: the latter is likely to increase the child’s influence on decision‐making. Outlines demographic changes, such as the greater number of one‐parent households and two‐income families, which have produced “time‐poor” parents: the result is that children and adolescents now exercise a greater influence on purchasing decisions. Tests two hypotheses: that parents and adolescents disagree in their perceived ratings of adolescents’ product category decision influence; and that male and female adolescents’ perceived influences differ across a range of product categories. Concludes that parents and adolescents generally agree, but that there is some degree of difference between male and female perceived influence ratings, in the categories of large purchases and food.

Looks at attitudes of Chinese adolescents to materialism, including the effect of age on materialism and the influence of family and peers. Outlines the values of Chinese culture: thrift, respect for parents, group orientation, social harmony, good manners, face, and academic achievement; these values could impact both positively and negatively on endorsement of materialistic values. Points out that parental expectations of their children’s material success have increased since the one child per family policy. Finds that older adolescents were more materialistic than younger ones, that more materialistic adolescents tended to communicate more with their peers and less with their parents, and that television (which now reaches 92 per cent of households) has no effect because the Chinese government’s strict rules about TV programmes’ content requires them to reflect traditional values.

Attempts to determine which individual, or group of individuals, has the strongest influence on adolescent consumer purchase intentions and purchase behavior. By introducing the concepts of direct (fathers and mothers) and vicarious (favorite entertainers and favorite athletes) role models into the consumer behavior literature, the study allows greater understanding of the socialization patterns of young adult consumers. Results from this study provide significant contributions for marketing and advertising managers seeking to improve their understanding of the ever‐growing adolescent consumer market.

This paper aims to explore the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip to better understand the experiences and process that occur during these shopping trips. Adolescent girls and their mothers are an important shopping companion pair that has received minimal study.

This research investigates the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip using in-depth interviews with 28 mothers, adolescent daughters and retail employees in the USA.

The interviews reveal that the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip consists of three important developmental experiences: conflict and struggle, education and influence and bonding between mother and daughter. Similarities and differences between middle- and high-school daughters relative to these issues are explored.

This study is the first to bring together the interplay processes of conflict, education and influence and bonding during mother–adolescent daughter shopping trips. This study extends research regarding family identity interplay, companion shopping, adolescent identity development and consumer socialization. The authors find that the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip involves daughters’ efforts to separate from their mothers and form their own identities, often producing struggle and conflicts; daughters developing as consumers and individuals; and an opportunity to bond.

The purpose of this paper was to assess how adolescents' favorite apparel brand was related to congruency between brand image and three components of self concept (actual, ideal, ideal social). Predictors of the brand‐self concept congruency relationships were also examined.

A questionnaire distributed to 300 high school students yielded usable data from 137 students. Participants' ages ranged from 14 to 18 years.

The highest level of congruency was found between adolescents' favorite apparel brand and their actual self concept followed by ideal social and ideal self concept. Adolescents who indicated that their apparel purchases were highly influenced by their peers or family members linked their favorite brand with their ideal social or ideal self concept. Materialistic adolescents also linked their favorite apparel brand to their ideal self concept.

Focusing on congruency between brand and self concept is an important strategy in marketing targeting adolescents. Family and peer group influences played an important role in congruency adolescents identified between self and apparel brands.

This research demonstrated application of self‐brand congruency theory to adolescents and to apparel products. Adolescent consumers, like adults, identify a preference for apparel brands that they can link to some aspect of self.

Research on choice overload with adult participants has shown that the presence of a brand significantly mitigates the phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether these findings can be expanded to a population of adolescents, where it has already been shown that choice overload occurs in a similar way as adults.

Studies 1 and 2 aim to test whether the presence of a brand name mitigates the adverse consequences of choice overload in adolescents. In line with prior research on choice overload, in both studies, the authors compared between-subjects differences in the levels of reported dissatisfaction, difficulty and regret in a choice condition where adolescents chose among either 6 or 24 options associated with brand names and in another choice condition where adolescents chose among the same 6 or 24 options but not associated with brand names.

This paper presents evidence from two studies that when facing either a large or a small amount of choice options that are associated with brand names, choice overload disappears among adolescents. Conversely, when no brands are associated to the choice options, adolescents report choice overload, that is a greater dissatisfaction, difficulties and regret with larger (versus smaller) assortments.

Prior research on choice overload has led to recommendations that marketers and other choice architects should simply reduce choice options or assortments to improve consumers’ satisfaction. However, our finding suggests that this recommendation may be invalidated when brands are present, at least for certain age groups. Adolescents cope indeed very well with large assortments of branded products.

The research adds to the existing understanding of choice overload, demonstrating that the brand is a moderator of the phenomenon for adolescents, who currently represent a large portion of the market. A second important contribution of this work is that it extends prior research on choice overload to real-world consumer scenarios, where consumers choose among products with a brand, rather than among products described only by technical characteristics or nutritional values, as in classical studies on choice overload.

Does celebrity endorsement work and how does it work among adolescents? This article aims to identity attributes of celebrity endorsers and attributes of celebrity endorsement advertisements that are most appealing to the adolescents. The article also seeks to examine adolescents' perceptions about how celebrity‐endorsement advertisements work.

A focus group study among 76 Chinese adolescents aged 13 to 19 was conducted. Interviewees were asked to identify the specific elements of advertisements using celebrity endorsement that were most appealing to them. They were asked to suggest how advertisements using celebrity endorsements work.

Results found that interviewees were best able to recall celebrity endorsers whom they considered attractive, funny and expressive. They identified popularity, a good image, and congruence between the celebrity's image and that of the brand as important factors for marketers to consider in selecting celebrity endorsers. A majority of the interviewees perceived that using a celebrity in an ad would increase brand awareness, attract the celebrity's fans, encourage trial, and enhance purchase confidence.

A theoretical model on how advertisements using celebrity endorsements work from the point‐of‐view of adolescents was constructed.

Previous studies on celebrity endorsement have been mainly quantitative in nature. The present study adopts a qualitative methodology and fills a gap in the literature.

The compulsive buying (CB)behaviour has become topics of increasing interest to researchers and policy makers, particularly because researches have shown that it can influence consumer behaviour and well-being. However, a clear picture of how this phenomenon arises has proven elusive. Using the adolescents perceived level of stress as an integrative framework, the purpose of this paper is to derive hypotheses from two theoretical perspectives (the stress and CB behaviour), and uses a survey of adolescents (15-18) year in India to test the hypotheses.

The present study is the first to experimentally manipulate important stressors in the lives of adolescents, i.e. familial and non-familial; and measures its impact on CB among a sample of 15-18-year old adolescents. Next, the authors investigate the relationship between CB and post-purchase regret and then whether gender moderates the stress-CB relationship.

The present study finds that adolescents increasingly turn to CB in an attempt to cope with heightened levels of stress due to familial and non-familial factors. Surprisingly, findings reveal that non-familial factors are not a major source of stress among adolescents. Gender was not found to moderate stress-CB relationship. Both boys and girls were found to respond to higher levels of stress with higher incidences of CB. Results suggest that CB behaviour is a common coping strategy for adolescents from both genders. The findings indicate that one’s experiences and circumstances in adolescence are related to their CB behaviour, thus a framework has been used to elucidate them, have important implications for theory and practice.

The study makes some inimitable and significant contributions to the literature. It portrays one of few studies to investigate CB during adolescence period – a hard to reach population. Here authors experimentally manipulate stress levels to investigate its impact on CB. The study’s findings in regard to gender’s impact on the stress-CB relationship suggest that CB begins during adolescence period and is a common coping strategy for both boys and girls.

The purposes of this research are to examine the extent to which daughters view their mothers as consumption role models, the extent to which daughters serve as consumption role models for their mothers, and the extent to which external role models are shared by mothers and their adolescent daughters.

Two qualitative studies focused on mothers‐adolescent daughters‐vicarious role models interactions as drivers of consumption behaviors in Western cultures. Study 1 included 20 in‐depth interviews with mothers and their adolescent daughters (conducted separately). Study 2 included five of the original dyads interviewed jointly and observed in fashion stores.

Regarding adolescent daughters' use as role models and fashion markers for their mothers, most mothers confirmed that their adolescent daughters' fashion opinion was very important. Second, based on consumer socialization arguments, mothers served as role models for their adolescent daughters. Most dyads shop for fashion items together and in the same stores. Regarding the issue of cognitive versus chronological ages, the studies suggest that there is a gap between mothers' cognitive and chronological ages in support of cognitive age theory and the youthfulness ideal of Western cultures. Notably, such a gap mostly failed to materialize for adolescent daughters. Hence, consumption similarity appears to be driven more by the gap for mothers than the gap for daughters. Finally, external role models such as celebrities did not have a great influence on mothers or their adolescent daughters.

The research used in‐depth interviews with and in‐store observation of mothers and adolescent daughters. Future research might use similar interviews with younger daughters. Another extension of the work reported here that can provide triangulation for the findings is to change from a qualitative to a quantitative methodology.