<p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2012</p>

The practice of promoting food to children via advergames is a highly topical issue which attracts much concern due to the low nutritional value of the promoted foods. This thesis examines the effects of customised food advergames on children’s affective, cognitive and conative responses. It also investigates the role persuasion knowledge and prior brand usage have in children’s interaction with advergames. In particular, whether children’s persuasion knowledge acts as a barrier to those responses. This research is situated within the domains of marketing communications, consumer behaviour and consumer socialisation. It adopts an affect transfer theory, the Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH), to explain the transfer of affect from an advergame to children’s responses. Three versions of the same advergame were designed for the purpose of this thesis with different levels of customisation (i.e. control, low and high experimental conditions). An experiment among younger (5-7 year olds) and older (11¬12 year olds) children reveals that customisation in advergames has a detrimental effect on children’s affective, cognitive and conative responses. It was the control condition, without customisation options, that rendered a positive impact on brand attitudes and preferences relative to the other two experimental conditions. Persuasion knowledge does not influence children’s affective, cognitive or conative responses. This implies that children’s understanding of the persuasive intent of an advergame does not act as a barrier against its effects. Age had a significant role on children’s attitudes towards the advergame, but not on their other responses to it. Finally, prior brand usage has a positive impact on children’s responses apart from on advergame attitudes. This thesis has implications to policy and practice. It is evident that children from two distinct age and cognitive developmental groups cannot protect themselves from advergames’ effects. Therefore, regulators should broaden the scope of concern to older and younger children alike.

The practice of promoting food to children via advergames is a highly topical issue which attracts much concern due to the low nutritional value of the promoted foods. This thesis examines the effects of customised food advergames on children’s affective, cognitive and conative responses. It also investigates the role persuasion knowledge and prior brand usage have in children’s interaction with advergames. In particular, whether children’s persuasion knowledge acts as a barrier to those responses. This research is situated within the domains of marketing communications, consumer behaviour and consumer socialisation. It adopts an affect transfer theory, the Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH), to explain the transfer of affect from an advergame to children’s responses. Three versions of the same advergame were designed for the purpose of this thesis with different levels of customisation (i.e. control, low and high experimental conditions). An experiment among younger (5-7 year olds) and older (11¬12 year olds) children reveals that customisation in advergames has a detrimental effect on children’s affective, cognitive and conative responses. It was the control condition, without customisation options, that rendered a positive impact on brand attitudes and preferences relative to the other two experimental conditions. Persuasion knowledge does not influence children’s affective, cognitive or conative responses. This implies that children’s understanding of the persuasive intent of an advergame does not act as a barrier against its effects. Age had a significant role on children’s attitudes towards the advergame, but not on their other responses to it. Finally, prior brand usage has a positive impact on children’s responses apart from on advergame attitudes. This thesis has implications to policy and practice. It is evident that children from two distinct age and cognitive developmental groups cannot protect themselves from advergames’ effects. Therefore, regulators should broaden the scope of concern to older and younger children alike.

Submitted by Rafael Santana (rafael.silvasantana@ufpe.br) on 2017-07-14T17:36:21Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Tese - Edvan Aguiar.pdf: 4466098 bytes, checksum: 5dffe51268add65a59e22074a8f495e0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-14T17:36:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Tese - Edvan Aguiar.pdf: 4466098 bytes, checksum: 5dffe51268add65a59e22074a8f495e0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-29 / CAPES, CNPQ, FACEPE / Esta tese aborda o papel da presença dos outros clientes sobre o comportamento do consumidor em ambiente varejista. Argumenta-se que os outros tendem a influenciar emoções individuais, determinando, em grande medida, a satisfação, as intenções de compra e o retorno à loja. À luz da Teoria do Impacto Social (LATANÉ, 1981) e do Paradigma Similaridade-Atração (BYRNE, 1971), este estudo propõe que a identificação do consumidor com os outros clientes que compartilham o mesmo ambiente de loja minimiza a influência do crowding nas respostas individuais (emoções, atitudes e comportamentos). Portanto, esta pesquisa objetivou investigar de modo a similaridade percebida modera a relação entre percepção de crowding e respostas do consumidor, em ambiente varejista com diferentes níveis de densidade humana, proximidade física e perfil dos outros consumidores (aparência física). A partir de um estudo de desenho experimental, as hipóteses de pesquisa e o modelo conceitual foram testados, e os resultados suportaram a proposta de tese defendida. A similaridade percebida contribui para que emoções e atitudes negativas sejam mitigadas, bem como comportamentos de afastamento, mesmo em situações crowding na loja. Esta variável impacta positivamente com a avaliação que o consumidor faz sobre o varejista, os produtos e sua própria experiência de compra. Os achados também indicam que a similaridade percebida influencia atitudes e comportamentos por meio das respostas emocionais (mediação). O estudo amplia o corpo teórico de conhecimento ao fornecer evidências de que a identificação social modera (interfere) em como o crowding é percebido e avaliado pelos consumidores. / This dissertation talks about the role of other customers‟ presence on consumer behavior in retail environment. It is argued that other customrs tend to influence indivudual emotions, determining, mostly, satisfaction, purchase intentions and return to store. Based on Social Impact Theory (LATANÉ, 1981) and Similarity-Attraction Paradigm (BYRNE, 1971), this study proposes that consumer identification toward other customers that share the same retail store, mitigate crowding influence on individual responses (emotions, attitudes and behaviors). Therefore, this research aimed to investigate how perceived similarity moderates the relationship between crowding perception and consumer responses, in retail environment with different levels of human density, physical proximity and other customers‟ profile (physical appearence). Drawing an experimental design methodology, the research hypotheses and the conceptual model have been tested, and the results have supported the argument defended. Perceived similarity contributes to mitigate negative emotions and attitudes, as well as avoidance behaviors, despite the store is crowded. This variable impacts positively the evaluation that consumers make about the retailer, products and their own shopping experience. The findings also indicate that perceived similarity influences attitudes and behaviors through emotional responses (mediation). The study expands the body of knowledge providing evidences that social identification moderates (interfers) on how crowding is perceived and evaluated by consumers.