Nigerian Television Advert Exposure and Children Product Preference

This experimental study, investigated television food adverts and children's product preference. A sample of 210 participants between ages of 5 and 11 years were selected via the random and stratified sampling techniques. The instrument of data collection was Thurstones Preference Rating Scale (TPRS). The moderating role of age and gender were calculated to test the three null hypotheses raised at 0.05 level of significance. Findings denote that there is a significant difference in the preference for an advertised product between children within age 5 -8 and children within age 9 11. Disparate from some western studies, the Chi- square value in this research been 0.543 and greater than the critical value in the goodness of fit value table, implies that older children are more influenced by food advertisements. Implications of the study for food advertising to children are discussed.

Autorentext

Obanua Ada Sonia is a Lecturer and PhD student in the Department of Mass Communication, School of Human Resource Development, Covenant University. The focal areas of her research interest are Media Literacy and Public Policy. She has published some of these research findings.

Klappentext

This experimental study, investigated television food adverts and children's product preference. A sample of 210 participants between ages of 5 and 11 years were selected via the random and stratified sampling techniques. The instrument of data collection was Thurstones Preference Rating Scale (TPRS). The moderating role of age and gender were calculated to test the three null hypotheses raised at 0.05 level of significance. Findings denote that there is a significant difference in the preference for an advertised product between children within age 5 -8 and children within age 9 - 11. Disparate from some western studies, the Chi- square value in this research been 0.543 and greater than the critical value in the goodness of fit value table, implies that older children are more influenced by food advertisements. Implications of the study for food advertising to children are discussed.