دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی کودکان و برند های آنها: چگونگی ارتباط مصرف کنندگان جوان با برند ها - امرالد 2017

Purpose: To understand and explain the process by which child consumers form relationships with brands. Specifically, we attempt to understand how child consumers conceptualize brands, why and how they decide to engage in relationships with brands, and why they decide to break up with brands but sometimes reconcile with them. Methodology: A mixed methodology was followed in this research. Based on an ethnographic approach, 10 in-depth interviews were conducted among girls ranging from eight to 12 years old. Subsequently, a survey was completed by 122 children (boys and girls) to quantitatively examine the hypotheses formulated after the qualitative phase. Findings: Findings from both the qualitative and quantitative studies highlight and confirm that children conceptualize brands according to visual branding components, signs, and promotional activities. Furthermore, children make moral evaluations of brand behaviors and judge them as “good” or “bad.” More importantly, we propose two typologies: one for the reasons why children decide to engage in a positive relationship and another for why children engage in a negative relationship with a brand. Additionally, we found that children report having an active or passive relationship role according to the characteristics of the brand relationship. Moreover, despite their young age, children report having broken up relationships with several brands; the reasons are categorized into positive and negative break-ups. Finally, we found that positive break-ups lead to a more probable brand relationship reconciliation than negative break-ups. Originality: Despite a vast body of literature in the child consumer behavior field, there is scarce research regarding brand relationship phenomena. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical research conducted with child consumers addressing brand relationship formation, dissolution, and reconciliation.

Limitations and Future Research

Some limitations should be considered before generalizing the findings here described. An important limitation is that only children from upper-middle-class families were interviewed, future research should include children from different economic backgrounds. Also, children who participated in the quantitative study were gathered from schools. The results might be different for children who are home-schooled because they may not have the same influence from peers. It would be interesting if subsequent research shows differences for such children, who may also get involved with brands but in a different way.

Another limitation that we faced is the sample size for each age group (eight to twelve). In a whole, the sample was appropriate, but to find differences and segment by age, the number of participants in each age group should be bigger. This can benefit literature and advance our research by discovering how the brand relationships develop as children grow up. Additionally, a better understanding can happen if an examination of specifically the transition from children to adult, takes place. It can help to develop a complete model of how children and adults can be different but similar at the same time.

Also, the context here was in an emerging country such as Mexico. Even though, we did not found any cultural aspect; it would be interesting if future research focuses on differences between countries or regions.