ISSN: 2319-7285
Dr. Oluwole Iyiola and Joy Dirisu
The average American is exposed to 61,556 words from mass media each day which works out to just under 4,000 words per waking hour, about 60 words per waking minutes per person per day (Herbig and Kramer, 1994). Advertisements are everywhere. In recent years, the number of television (TV) advertisements, directed towards kids (18 months to 12 years old), has increased tremendously. Kids as young as 18 months recognize product logos. This fact is not lost on advertisers, who spend over $15 billion yearly pushing products and services aimed at children. Kids now watch an average of 40,000 TV commercials a year (Bigda, 2005). As a primary market, kids have considerable spending power: children between the ages of 4 and 12 are estimated to have spent $29 billion in 2000 (McDonald and Lavelle, 2001). Kids are also taken very seriously as a future market; hence, the emphasis is on building brand loyalty with the hope of creating a lifetime customer. Television (TV) advertisements have become a part of children daily lives. The questions now are: Why are so many television advertisements directed towards kids? How do kids react to these advertisements? How do they go about getting the product in the market? How do these TV advertisements modify the behavior of kids as consumers? and what role should parents play in their children’s TV watching behavior?. Questionnaire were distributed to 100 households in Cannanland, Ota, Nigeria (a University community), only 90 were useable. Chi square statistics were used to analyse the data; p<0.005 with a df of 4 and a chi-square value ranged from 15.000 to 29.222. The study showed that children advertisements have great impact on children, because they are easily influenced by advertisements which in essence consciously or unconsciously affect the family’s purchase behaviour; as a result of children demanding for the product(s) seen advertised on TV.