Valérie Hemar-Nicolas, Mathilde Gollety, Coralie Damay and Pascale Ezan
– This paper aims to explore the role played by food brands within children’s peer groups when they have a meal together.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the role played by food brands within children’s peer groups when they have a meal together.
Design/methodology/approach
Sixty-four elementary-aged children participated in one of ten organized snack times (five with unbranded products, five with branded products). Based on a qualitative methodology, data collection methods comprise observations and focus groups with the children.
Findings
Children mostly select the products according to their taste preference regardless of the brand name. They make individual decisions and are hardly influenced by their peers. Children use food brands as a common language to designate products, but they do not use them to convey their self-identity and enhance social integration.
Research limitations/implications
This research contributes to a better understanding of the way children use food brands within peer group, and may be helpful when considering the future of children’s food marketing and tackling the issue of childhood obesity.
Originality/value
Whereas prior research has mostly studied the social value allocated by children to durable goods’ brands, such as clothing and electronic items, very few previous studies have focused on food brands.
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Coralie Damay, Pascale Ezan, Mathilde Gollety and Valérie Nicolas‐Hemar
Research on consumer socialisation emphasises the role played by different agents as well as the influence of the context in which socialisation takes place. As part of the fight…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on consumer socialisation emphasises the role played by different agents as well as the influence of the context in which socialisation takes place. As part of the fight against obesity, this study on the nutritional learning of children seeks to focus specifically on social interactions in the standardised context of the school cafeteria in France. It aims to show how and through what social interactions children learn the rules related to food consumption to identify levers by which to promote healthy eating.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted in a French school cafeteria among children aged seven to 11. A qualitative methodology was used. It included direct observations of children when selecting and eating their meals and open interviews. A systematic survey of the components of children's food trays completes this work.
Findings
This work demonstrated the existence of various types of rules and social interactions. Adults appear to be the guarantors of institutional rules (related to the composition of the plates) and cultural rules (not to waste). Peers were marginally involved in the selection of products. The standards of taste and individual preferences indeed appear to be the background to the choices.
Originality/value
From an academic point of view, the paper supports consumer socialisation studies and emphasizes the importance of a systemic approach to human development. In particular, it enriches the research on food learning by showing how social interactions are involved in compliance with institutional rules and cultural norms.
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Valérie Hemar‐Nicolas, Pascale Ezan, Mathilde Gollety, Nathalie Guichard and Julie Leroy
Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, this research aims to investigate the interweaving of the socialization systems within which children learn eating practices, in…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, this research aims to investigate the interweaving of the socialization systems within which children learn eating practices, in order to open up new paths to build prevention and care programs against childhood obesity.
Design/methodology/approach
Children were interviewed using semi‐structured interviews, including projective methods. The data were analyzed by both a manual content analysis and the use of qualitative analysis software Nvivo. Nvivo enables to cross verbatim and contributes to highlight the joint effects of socialization agents in terms of children's eating learning.
Findings
The study clarifies the interrelationships between social contexts in which children learn food practices. It points out that the different social spheres may sometimes exert contradictory influences and that food learning cannot be limited to the transmission of nutritional information, but also involves emotional and social experiences.
Social implications
By showing that eating habits stem from complex processes, the research suggests measures against children's obesity that take into account the interrelationships between social contexts. It invites the policymakers and the food companies to implement actions based on social relationships involved in food learning.
Originality/value
Whereas the traditional consumer socialization models focus on interactions between child and one socialization agent, this research's findings shed light on the entanglement of social spheres concerning eating socialization. They show that using a social‐ecological approach is useful to policymakers, researchers, marketers, and other constituencies involved in developing solutions to the obesity problem.
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Valérie Hémar‐Nicolas and Mathilde Gollety
Brands that target children frequently use a brand character to improve children's recall and recognition and to develop a relationship with young consumers. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Brands that target children frequently use a brand character to improve children's recall and recognition and to develop a relationship with young consumers. This paper aims to explore the reasons why marketers use brand characters to target children and how children perceive and understand them.
Design/methodology/approach
This work investigates both managers' and children's experiences, in order to compare them. Two studies are carried out: one with managers in charge of brand characters and another one with children aged between six and ten. In both cases, a qualitative approach based on semi‐focused interviews is adopted.
Findings
This research contributes to a better understanding of the way children infer brand image from brand character. Second, it highlights a success key factor of brand character: its ability to build a close relationship with children. In addition it points out how this relationship can be fostered.
Originality/value
By exploring managers' and children's viewpoints, this research suggests some levers to build children's relationship with brand character and improve children's brand loyalty. This article gives an insight into the way brand character establishes a close relationship with children. In particular, it underlines that a child feels all the closer to a character if the character is used in the long‐term and has experiences that resonate with his/her life.
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Mathilde Gollety and Nathalie Guichard
The aim of this paper is, by using a semiotic approach to marketing, to evaluate the role of color and its influence on the choice behavior of children with regard to products…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is, by using a semiotic approach to marketing, to evaluate the role of color and its influence on the choice behavior of children with regard to products where flavor is represented by color.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was carried out as an experiment with children aged between 7 and 11 years of age.
Findings
The study showed that the color codes of the market are not used very much by children to make their product choice and also that the influences of metonymical logic (color of the component responsible for the flavor) and aesthetics (favorite color) dominate this choice. In a choice situation, flavor preference prevails more often over color preference.
Originality/value
From an academic point of view, this paper informs the studies in sensory marketing used in the children's market. In particular, it enhances the work on the impact of color on children's decision‐making process. From a methodological point of view, it adds to the range of experimental designs used to research the child target.
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Valérie-Inés de La Ville and Nathalie Nicol
The purpose of this paper is to offer some insight into how siblings aged between 4 and 12, engaged in a collaborative drawing activity at home, recall the shopping trips they…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer some insight into how siblings aged between 4 and 12, engaged in a collaborative drawing activity at home, recall the shopping trips they have experienced.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a Vygotskian perspective, the data collection consisted of engaging 15 pairs of siblings in the production of a joint drawing of a shop of their choice. Drawing in pairs opens a Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978) where the younger child benefits from verbal guidance by the older one to achieve the common task. This situation enables the researcher to gain close access to children’s knowledge about stores and to the words they use to describe their personal shopping experiences.
Findings
This exploratory research reveals some constitutive elements of children’s “shopscapes” (Nicol, 2014), i.e. the imaginary geographies they actively elaborate through their daily practices and experiences with regard to retail environments. In their communicative interactions when elaborating a joint drawing of the shop they have chosen, children demonstrate that they master a considerable body of knowledge about retail environments. Surprisingly, recalling their shopping practices sheds light on various anxiety-generating dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
The data collection is based on a remembering exercise performed at home and does not bring information about what children actually do in retail environments. Moreover, the children were asked to focus on buying a present for a friend’s birthday, therefore the information gathered essentially relates to toy stores.
Practical implications
This research underlines the necessity for retailers to endeavour to reduce some of the anxious feelings depicted and verbalized by children, by improving the welcome for children into their stores.
Social implications
There are also opportunities for retailers to invest in the consumption education area by guiding young visitors so that they learn how to behave as apprentice consumers in retail outlets.
Originality/value
The child-centric perspective of the study reveals new and surprising insights about the way children report their memorised shopping experiences.