Children’s hobbies as persuasive strategies : the role of literacy training in children’s responses to personalized ads

In today's online environment, children inevitably encounter personalized advertising. However, research suggests that children are not yet able to cope with this advertising type. This study therefore investigates whether literacy training helps children recognize personalized advertising. The 2 (personalized versus nonpersonalized ad) x 2 (literacy training versus no training) between-subjects design experiment (N = 166) suggests that personalized advertising decreased children's (9 to 13 years) brand attitude but increased their purchase intentions. Moreover, training helped children to better recognize personalized ads. Contrary to the expectations, this targeting recognition positively affected brand attitude and purchase intentions