The influence of source attractiveness on self‐perception and advertising effectiveness for 6‐ to 7‐year‐old children

The objective of this article is to examine the effects of using attractive peer models in advertising for 6- to 7-year-old children. This age is important in children’s development, as children of that age are not yet fully aware of the persuasive intent of advertising, are more focused on perceptual than on cognitive information in ads and are more focused on irrelevant rather than relevant ad information. More insights are therefore needed about whether attractive advertising models influence self-perception and advertising effectiveness of children this young, in order to help policy makers, parents and advertisers understand these effects. Two experimental studies are presented in which children are exposed to ads with peer models. Results show that when children of 6- to 7-year-old rate advertising models as being more attractive, advertising effectiveness raises, but children’s perceived self-worth and children’s perceived physical attractiveness are unaffected. We conclude that 6- to 7- year-old children use model attractiveness as a perceptual cue to rate ads but are not yet using comparisons with these models to evaluate themselves.