It is commonly believed that children wield significant influence in big-ticket purchase decisions. But studies seem to show that children may be under the illusion that they are more involved in decision making than is actually the case, notes an essay included in ‘Understanding Children as Consumers’ edited by David Marshall ( >www.sagepublications.com ).
Although the child may think that he or she has had a say in the final outcome it may be that the parents have already narrowed their choice and have allowed the child to choose the detail, explain the essay’s authors, Julie Tinson and Clive Nancarrow. For instance, the parent has decided on the model of the car and the child is given the opportunity to choose the colour.
The authors cite a study by Shoham and Dalakas (2005) which summarises a number of variables that explain children’s influences on decision making. “The degree of influence the child consumer has is likely to be related to the age of the child, parental attitudes towards advertising, the stage of decision making (search, discussion, etc.), the type of product or brand (whether it is only for the child’s personal consumption or part of a wider family activity, and its importance in relation to peer group affiliation in particular.”
Interestingly, researchers have found that parental acquiescence in a shopping context escalates as the child’s age increases, so much so that ‘mid/late teenagers have been identified as engaging in a consultancy role for family holidays.’
Defining savvy
An instructive section in the essay is about three ways to measure consumer savvy, be it of adults or children. For starters, ‘savvy,’ a popular term applied to consumers by marketers and journalists, is ‘practical know-how’ or being a ‘shrewd judge.’
The notion of consumer savvy runs counter to the traditional model of the passive consumer, elaborate Tinson and Nancarrow. They add that a savvy consumer brings past experience and knowledge from other sources to the marketers’ touch-points such as communications, and service. “This may lead consumers to become shrewder in their consumer behaviour though of course there may be barriers, for instance, a lack of money and no access or limited access to sources of information or distribution channels.”
On IQ lines
The first measure of consumer savvy is an objective one, equivalent to IQ (intelligence quotient), but focused on the knowledge and understanding of consumer issues and a critical evaluation of communications and product choices.
Though, for this purpose, one can learn from the field of psychology which has more than a hundred years of experience in developing ‘intelligence tests,’ the authors concede that the development of objective measures of consumer savvy can be a long and demanding task, with new challenges such as ensuring the measures reflect the changing consumer environments.
They advise that the successful administration and marking of a literacy or consumer IQ test for children requires both time constraints and invigilators, as speed of thought, knowledge, the ability to evaluate and the prevention of ‘cheating’ are key factors. “This is clearly not feasible in many commercial marketing research projects, particularly those involving self-completion questionnaires (e.g. such as online or mail surveys). Nonetheless, it is necessary to develop an ‘objective’ measure to examine the relationship with other possible indicators or surrogate measures of savvy…”
Surrogate measure
A possible surrogate measure that the authors describe hinges on asking respondents how savvy they think they are relative to the people they know. Watch out, however, for posturing, and snobbishness (such as, being dismissive of having an interest in shopping), the book alerts.
Of value in the essay is an illustration drawn by a boy aged 10 depicting his views of a person who knows about shopping. Words that he mentions along with apt drawings are: ‘see what other shops’ prices are to get the best deal,’ ‘cool,’ ‘getting other ideas,’ ‘girls,’ ‘trendy brands,’ ‘people that want to look good,’ ‘sale/ bargain clothes,’ ‘see things on TV,’ ‘magazines,’ and so on.
Perception gauging
The third measure according to the authors is ‘the perception of how much consumer savvy a person has by key informants (friends, colleagues, parents, etc.).’ They agree that, as with other measures, there are likely to be issues surrounding the accuracy of perceptions. “With the child being judged by his/ her mother there may also be a perceptual and response bias where other factors influence perceptions, such as pride in the child and perceptions of ability in other areas (e.g. schoolwork) being generalised to consumer savvy.”
Yet, from a social perspective, this may be a very relevant measure in terms of explaining purchase influence within a family for family products or products for others in the family, argue Tinson and Nancarrow.
Suggested read for avid marketers.
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