Attitude of Parents towards Television Viewing and Children’s Advertising in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Advertising is the best-known and most widely discussed form of promotion probably because of its pervasiveness. It’s considered as a very cost effective method for communicating with large audiences and also can be used to create brand images and symbolic appeals of the brand. Marketers and advertisers have identified that children are one of the main segments they can target their various appeals. They represent an important demographic to marketers because they have their own purchasing power, they influence their parents' buying decisions and they are the adult consumers of the future. However one of the most controversial topics advertisers must deal with is the issue of advertising on children. This research was done with the purpose to identify the level of attitude of parents towards children’s advertising and its relationship with parental mediation of children’s television viewing behavior. A questionnaire assessing the attitudes was distributed among 200 parents of primary and secondary school children in Western Province of Sri Lanka. The survey results indicated that parents’ hold negative attitude towards television advertising in general and children’s advertising specifically. Further the survey revealed that although parents perceive that they have to control the televising viewing behavior of children, the mediation on this was low among the Sri Lankan parents.