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This study aims to examine young children’s (ages 4 to 7) knowledge and skills (i.e. their advertising literacy) for television (TV) commercials, YouTube pre-roll ads and influencer marketing. Furthermore, this study explores how parental perceptions and practices and children’s social abilities influence the development of their advertising literacy.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with parents (N = 35) and their child(ren) (ages 4 to 7, N = 40).

Results revealed preschool children have advertising literacy skills for TV commercials and YouTube pre-roll ads, but not for influencer marketing. These skills are limited to advertising recognition based on perceptual cues and a simple understanding of selling intent. Children’s advertising skills evolved according to age but did not relate to social development. Furthermore, advertising literacy was related to parental media mediation: the more restrictive parents were regarding media use, the less advertising literacy their children appeared to have. No moral reflections regarding advertising were found among the preschool children.

This study fills significant gaps in the literature on young children and advertising. It conducts a qualitative investigation into young children’s knowledge of digital advertising formats (pre-roll ads and influencer marketing) and how they differ from traditional advertising (TV commercials). Furthermore, it takes both parental influences and social developmental variables into account.

Insufficient attention to the specific nature of healthy food experiences might limit the success of related innovations. The purpose of this article is to adopt a value‐in‐use perspective to conceptualize healthy food consumption as experiential and emotional, rather than the mere intake of nutrition, and to examine the development of healthy food communication with a service science approach.

With a service science approach, this study proposes a virtual healthy food platform for children. The key data come from internal project documents, workshops with children and other stakeholders (e.g. parents, teachers), and interviews with project team members.

The simultaneity of functional and hedonic benefits, implications for multiple stakeholders, social norms, and need for expertise characterize healthy food experiences. The proposed framework accounts for enablers, principles, outcomes, and challenges affecting the development of communication integral to healthy food experiences, using project data and tools as illustrations.

This study contributes to growing literature on service science by introducing key principles and contingency factors that influence the success of experience‐centric service innovations. Quantitative research should validate the established framework and investigate the elements' relative usefulness for developing healthy food communication.

The service science approach involves multiple stakeholders, empathic data collection, and visual tools to develop an entertaining platform to help children learn about healthy food.

This research conceptualizes and validates healthy food experiences as value‐in‐use offerings. The proposed service science approach accounts for the interactions among stakeholders, the holistic nature, and specificities of a real‐life decision context for improving healthy food experiences.