Lit Review pt 2

Advertising, Advertising Literacy, Children and Cognitive Development

Does Advertising Literacy Mediate the Effects of Advertising on Children? A Critical Examination of Two Linked Research Literatures in Relation to Obesity and Food Choice
Sonia Livingstone & Ellen J. Helsper

Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US
Mary Story and Simone French

Childrens Understanding of Advertising Intent
Margaret-Anne Lawlor and Andrea Prothero

These articles have a slight overlap in content, and I felt that these articles are best discussed together.

Livingstone quotes Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, where his system of the pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational child as a major influence on the characterization behind the stages of media literacy – reinforcing that the relationship between children’s age and their developing media and advertising literacy is well established. Also crucial to advertising literacy is the ability to distinguish advertisements from programs and the ability to recognize the persuasive intent underlying advertising. This is supported by Lawlor and Prothero, whose research found a sample of respondents aged between eight and nine years of age to have a remarkably sophisticated knowledge and understanding of advertising intent, as well as displaying an awareness and insight into advertising beyond and over the advertisers intent.

However, Livingstone and Helsper concludes that advertising literacy (relative to age and cognitive development) does not affect the effectiveness of advertising, as all age groups continue to be persuaded by advertising regardless of advertising literacy, and critiques the available academic literature, refuting the assumption that younger children are more susceptible to advertising compared to older children. Story and French also conclude that respondents aged 8-10 have the cognitive ability and media savvy to process the advertising, but do not do so.

They question the correlation between the level of literacy and level of effects, citing a lack of consistent evidence to support the commonly accepted status quo of children with a lower level of media literacy are more susceptible to the effects of advertising.

Story and French found reason to question further research into a correlation between the amounts of advertising a child is exposed to relative to his/her weight, and expressed concern about the levels of media and advertising exposure children had in the US. They were particularly concerned about the increased presence of advertising in schools, and drew comparisons between advertising used by food companies and the advertising used in the tobacco industry.

Together, Story, French, Livingstone, Helsper, Lawlor and Prothero all come to a general conclusion that advertising literacy does not equal advertising imperviousness. Livingstone and Helsper extend the hypothesis that the younger demographic (pre-operational children) are engaged with the advertising content due to their lower level of literacy, and the older demographic (concrete and formal operational children) are engaged in advertising strategies that their increased levels of literacy allow. This “dual process models of persuasion” argument contains an insight that could prove far more useful than the blanket assumption of the single process marketing model.

Story, Livingstone, Helsper et al all found cues to continued research into several assumed correlations, disproving the accepted assumptions and questioning some of the research methodology applied. They suggest interesting niches and gaps in the current body of knowledge, such as Story and French mentioning studies that follow associations between hours of televisions watched and the prevalence of obesity in children, and suggesting the need to research the possible relationship between “exposure to food advertising, eating behaviours and obesity”.

Livingstone and Helsper also suggest reducing focus on media literacy and concentrating on refuting the persuasion of marketing. I believe that increased education in media literacy and countering the persuasion of marketing should go together. Instead of countering with pure contrarian rhetoric, increasing awareness of intent which is already inherent in younger children and using that knowledge to point out facts that contest advertising claims is a more efficient means of contesting the ubiquity of food advertising.

Detailed Lit Review pt 1

The Pictorial World of the Child, Maureen Cox

This book gives a detailed account of children’s “understanding and appreciation of art” and their improving capabilities in producing their own pictures. Cox discusses internal and external influences, including a “child’s inventiveness and level of cognitive development”, and the shaping influences of “adult drawings, cultural diversity and other children’s pictures”. She is rather critical of the use of drawings as a measure of intelligence, but quotes Piaget and the professional use of children’s drawings particularly in psychological evaluations.

p.71. Cox compares the ideas of intellectual (or logical) realism versus visual realism, and charts the shift from the traditional internal model to the portrayal of the perceived form relative to the age and mental development of the child. She challenges the idea of the conservatism schema as childish mode of intellectual realism, but describes it as a deliberate choice. There is a positive correlation between a child’s increased memory capacity and the pictorial complexity that they are capable of producing – marking the shift towards visual realism

p.145 Cox details the use of size and the relation of size and its emotional content. She ascribes positive emotional charge to drawings of larger figures, and the inverse with smaller figures. This is particularly interesting, as other literature also point toward larger figures as having positive emotional charge. Modern graphic novels typically use scale as a signifier of superhuman status.

p.269 The cultural differences in art education between Western (European) and Eastern (Chinese) are detailed in the chapter. Cox seeks to find the middle ground between the perceived formal structure practised by Chinese teachers and the free education of the UK classroom. She proceeds to detail the influence of manga comics on the development of Japanese children, before concluding with generalizations of each culture.

NAPCAN's "Children See Children Do"

Do as I say, not as I do.

www.e-glue.fr

If only I were 5 again - what a great style and pallette. Nice to see strong colours instead of the usual pastels. Not that its not a good idea, just a little boring. Fantastique.

I wish I could do this

I think illustrators that can code are a rare breed that can use both sides of their brain. Almost as bad (read: good but time consuming) as LineRider, but the Scribbler is beautiful.

Wrigley's

Wrigley's Extra "The Annoying Foods spot was developed at DDB Sydney, by executive creative director Matt Eastwood, creative director Steve Back, art director Antony Simmons, copywriter Alexander Wadelton and agency producer Honae MacNeill."

Beautiful.

In no particular order:
"Tab"

"White"

"Big Blast"

"Banana Bourne"


More details from Duncan's TV Ad Land ( 1 | 2 )

Pocoyó

Something a little lighter, my current aesthetic reference. Pocoyo is originally Spanish, but is distributed in the UK by the BBC, and is now watched globally.

What struck me is how watchable it is, regardless of the language of narration. For example, here are the first two episodes of the first season, presented in 4 languages,









none of them English - "Hush" and "Pocoyo Dance". Makes me want to make mine with just a audio/sound designer. But even with the dialogue removed, the narrative is clear. Just beautiful.

I will definitely have to watch both seasons in its entirety ASAP. For more details - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocoyo

As a response to my last post (and to Mission-On), I guess my methodology is decent. TV and web ads is the money ticket.

Good ad title: "Hey, come out and play" - Offspring, "Come Out and Play", Smash (1994).

What works?

This is an interesting perspective: Hickey on Mission-On. I must say I agree with him, and this does extend the paradox of digital media encouraging physical exercise. Maybe I should develop a Wii-Fit game instead. And of note, I consider Tama (mentioned in article) a friend of mine, and if anyone deserves $10 million in development funds, it'd be him.


And for reference's sake, the prequel to that column.

Child-centric methodology

A principal of a primary school mentioned in our correspondence "...the perceived dichotomy against using digital media to promote a healthy eating message when one of the biggest obstacles to improving children’s health and well being is balancing nutrition with physical exercise." this is something I think I will definitely have to address somehow.

The primary research methodology to be employed is an active research technique, or projective research technique - "which have been used successfully in consumer behaviour studies and can provide a fruitful means to elicit responses from children - particularly for abstract themes and ideas." (Banister and Booth, 2005). The children ("respondents") will be encouraged as far as possible to discuss the following issues.

This will be approached from 2 angles:

• The healthy eating focus group, concentrating on these points:

1. discuss favourite foods and breakfast cereals,
2. discuss what do you (the respondents) think is healthy food,
3. do you know the food pyramid or how much should you eat? - gauging the effectiveness of existing HEHA guidelines and the Mission-On/Team-Up initiative,
4. which will be followed up by drawing/writing exercises that correspond and reinforce the discussion topics above
   

• and the character design angle, concentrating on these points of research:

1. discuss your favourite cereal mascot,
2. discuss your favourite television/cartoon characters,
3. draw/write about your favourite cereal/cartoon character,
4. here's the tricky part; draw yourself with your best friend,
5. and draw yourself, your friends, and your favourite character doing something healthy.

The wording will be a little different, as the younger respondents might be asked to choose food options for an imaginary character, ie, what do you think "Bobby" or "Jane" should eat at breakfast or during the morning tea break, and why?

I have a particular interest in this angle, as there have been research that shows children form empathic bonds with characters/people who share their physical characteristics. This also serves as an initial character design ideation process, and forms the first of hopefully several more interactions with the focus groups as part of an iterative design process.

"Tell me why"

This will be complemented with audio recordings (with consent) and other strictly observational researchers. There have been observations on childrens/respondents' reaction to audio recording devices, but if it's clear from the outset the role of the recorder, then it becomes an invaluable tool.

Drawing tools will be interesting as well. Traditionally, teachers favour the use of thick, colourful crayons over pencils, but "the pencil also has advantages over the crayon, one of the most important being the amount of fine detail that can be achieved with it; for this reason, the figures that children draw in pencil are likely to be more advanced developmentally." (Cox, 1992). A good compromise would be, in my opinion, a combination of pencil, slightly thicker coloured pencils, and an assortment of crayons.

My project might need a catchy name, eg: 5x5x5 <-- could well be one of my case studies. (Is 5 too many?)

What I've been reading today:

• Janet D. Latner and Albert J. Stunkard, “Getting Worse: The Stigmatization of Obese Children,” Obesity 11, no. 3 (March 2003): 452-456.

It's amusing from my perspective, but is also an extremely useful piece of design research.

• Kim Thomas, “Futurelab - Resources - Publications, reports & articles - Web articles - Naturally curious,” April 2008, http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications_reports_articles/web_articles/Web_Article973.
• “Futurelab - Resources - Publications, reports & articles - VISION magazine - Let's get personal: what does personalised learnin,” http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications_reports_articles/vision_magazine/VISION_Article243.
• “the OU : CREET : Children's Research Centre,” http://childrens-research-centre.open.ac.uk/research.cfm. - particularly this piece by Rhiannon Olderlshaw
  

Been trying to profile my target demo/psychographic concisely, and I've been pretty consistent with the Piaget theory of structure to drive this, but I think I can extend it. Watch this space.

Rehash of an old podcast I heard a while ago: Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity.

The target audience

The fluctuating target demographic / psychographic. Rationale for the target age group:

Children at the concrete operational stage (aged 7-9);
who also have a sophisticated understanding of the difference between programming and advertising;
with their memory based on understanding, rather than perception;
their learning is at it's most effective in active or personal research -

"The essential functions of intelligence consist in understanding and in inventing; in other words, building up structures by structuring reality". Piaget, J. Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child, p.27. ;

To be continued.

PDFs of the day ( Projective Techniques Explored )

Just one shamefully.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget defines the ages of 2 - 7 as in the pre-operational stage, and the ages of 7 - 11 s the concrete operational stage - where is characterized by the use of logic, and the eventual elimination of the ego-centric child.

My initial selected demographic was ages 6 - 8, as that corresponds to the 1st 3 years of primary school in New Zealand, and I might shift it to ages 7 - 9, to correspond to the 1st half of the concrete operational stage.

To be taken into consideration.

A wikipedia link. Oh gosh.

Case Studies

Several case studies I'm going to be looking at and dissecting in the very near future:

The EU free Fruit Scheme
The Rhode Street Primary School Vegetable Garden
The Roots of Empathy Programme (Canada) (now here)

Maybe Fuelled 4 School ?

PDFs of the day ( ROE | What Works | Child-centric Research | Write and Draw | MoE Food guidelines | Fuelled for School | Cultural Taste | Childrens' Understanding of Advertising | Self-brand Connections in Children | Consumer Socializations of Children )

This might have a thick bibliography.

Research Questions

My research aims/questions are:

The central proposition of this research is how do we communicate a health and diet related message to six to eight year old children via an empathic bond with digital characters? This specific message is the health issue of diet and everyday nutrition, and the bond is achieved by a range of visual characteristics on a set of digital characters that are determined through research in a series of short animations that the children respond to and empathise with.

A series of other questions also need to be addressed:

• Identifying and analysing a range of sample characters available;

• Identifying what visual styles are more appealing;

• Understanding the level of social interaction achievable between the audience and the digital characters;

• Understanding the level of learning from emulation – either from emulating other children or digital characters;

• Understanding how much of a character's attraction is due to the design, and how much of the popularity can be attributed to other factors such as peer pressure.

Read more here.

the easiest bib tool yet

Firefox comes to the rescue again with Zotero. Carry your bibliography between machines, annotate books with a single click. Add-ons ftw.