The development of brand attitudes among young consumers in Cyprus

The theme of the colloquium is “Branding and Society”. The promotion of brands among children is an area of marketing practice that raises important issues at the interface between marketing and society. The debate about “pester power” is a prominent example of the kinds of issue that arise in this problematic area. Key questions in this debate are the extent to which children are influenced by branding, whether this influence is turned into behaviours directed at influencing family purchasing patterns, and the extent to which parents are influenced by such behaviours. In this paper we address a fundamental issue underlying all of these questions, namely, how young children form attitudes towards brands. The empirical context for the study is school-children aged between 7 and 12 attending elementary school in Cyprus. We report the findings from a survey of brand attitude formation conducted with 221 children. The survey used closed questions to investigate the children’s attitudes towards brands, and the relative influence of friends, siblings, parents and advertising in the development of the children’s brand attitudes. Open questions were used to identify the brands with which the children were familiar.