Young consumers' understanding of advertising in online social networking sites

As children increasingly embrace online platforms such as interactive games, social networking sites and branded websites, marketers accordingly seek to target children within these platforms. However, a widely expressed... [ view full abstract ]

As children increasingly embrace online platforms such as interactive games, social networking sites and branded websites, marketers accordingly seek to target children within these platforms. However, a widely expressed concern in the literature is that the embedded, interactive and entertaining capabilities of these platforms can lead to commercial messages exerting more subtle and persuasive effects on children, who also may not be fully aware of the nature and purpose of these commercial messages. This paper presents findings from an Irish study whose aim was to explore the presence of advertising literacy amongst twelve to fourteen year old girls, in the context of their use of online SNS. The study suggests that there was a low level of advertising literacy amongst the girls. For example, their awareness of the forms of SNS advertising was limited to banner and pop-up advertisements. Furthermore, the participants were unaware that in using branded content as a means of managing their online identities, they were serving to act as unintentional brand ambassadors. It is therefore suggested that that the traditional criteria for advertising literacy in a child do not neatly translate into the online environment, where there can be a blurring of entertainment and commercial content.