Adolescents' responses to food and beverage advertising in China

Abstract

Both global and local food marketers have been marketing actively with children and youths in China. Adolescents are important targets for healthy eating as they are being more independent in making food decisions. Social marketers and health educators need to learn from food marketers effective strategies that can communicate creatively with this target segment. Four focus-group interviews were conducted with twenty-four grade 7 students aged 12 to 13 in Changsha, a second-tier city in China. Participants were asked to report their favorite food and beverage commercials, and explain why they liked the advertisements. Altogether 21 commercials were reported as favorite commercials. Results indicated that entertainment value, presenting food as tasty, adopting celebrities as endorsers, memorable jingles/slogans, as well as aesthetically pleasing were main attributes of the advertisements that won the participants’ hearts. Comparison of the results with attributes of likable commercials among Hong Kong adolescents was made.