Journal of Marketing Management, 2003,19, 433-457

Alice Bartholomew and

Stephanie O'Donohoei*

Everything Under Control: A

Child's Eye View of Advertising

Research on children's response to advertising

is dominated by positivistic and quantitative
approaches and often addresses children's
failure to understand advertising in an adult
manner. This paper suggests that reliance on
Piaget's theory of child development has
restricted research on children and advertising,
and calls for more attention to be given to
theorists such as Erikson who offer broader
accounts incorporating social and cultural
issues. The paper builds a case for viewing
children as active, socially and culturally
,- .
.
r^i- 1 ,
situated consumers of advertising by
The University of Edinburgh'^
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T J
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reviewing meaning-based, reader-response and

literacy approaches to advertising. It reports
on a qualitative study (using photo diaries,
individual interviews and small friendship
group discussions) which sought a child's eye
view of advertising experiences among 10-12
year-olds. The children shared a drive to
obtain and demonstrate power in their
everyday lives, and this led them to seek
mastery, control and critical distance in their
dealings with advertising. The study's
implications are considered for advertising
practitioners, researchers and public policy
makers.
Kejrwords: advertising to children, advertising literacy, interpretive
research, reader, response theory
Introduction
Replete with descriptions of children as "vulnerable", "naive", and
"powerless", the literature on children and advertising conjures emotive
images of meek children at the mercy of mighty advertisers. Many parents.
^ Correspondence: Dr Stephanie O'Donohoe, School of Management, The University of
Edinburgh, 50 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY, Tel: 0131 650 3821, Email:
s.o'donohoe@ed.ac.uk
ISSN0267-257X/2003/3-4/00433 + 24 8.00/0

Westburn Publishers Ltd.

434

Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

educators, and pressure groups believe that advertisers exploit children's

credulity and lack of experience, and that advertising-induced demands lead
to family tensions and conflict (Gunter and Furnham, 1998).
Much research in this area assumes that children lack the sophistication
and maturity needed to cope with advertising - a view of child-as-innocent,
advertiser-as-seducer (Young 1990,1998). This focus on children in terms of
what they lack, and as more or less incompetent compared to adults, is
heightened by the pervasive application of Piaget's theory of child
development (Buckingham 1993). Furthermore, the prevalence of effects
perspectives and linear-sequential models of influence (Bjurstrom 1994) has
led to positivistic, quantitative research presenting children as passive
receivers of advertising. Experimental methods and laboratory studies are
the norm, with little attention paid to children's perspectives or their social
and cultural backgrounds.
The shortcomings of prior research were recently highlighted by Lawlor
and Prothero (2002), who make a powerful case for adopting a child's
perspective and a "non-commercial and meaning-based" approach when
researching children's understanding of advertising intent. They note for
example that whilst researchers examine children's appreciation of
advertisers' intent, children themselves may not view advertising simply as a
purchasing catalyst. In this paper, we seek to build on their work in two
ways. First, we review literature on child development and advertising
literacy to strengthen the case for meaning-based, contextual research on
children's understanding of advertising. Second, we report on a qualitative
study of 10-12 year-olds' experiences of advertising. When researching
children in the social sciences, Graue and Walshe (1998:7) insist that.
The lens of research must zoom in to a shot of the situated child. Her life is
more than an interchangeable backdrop - it is part of the picture, lending
life to the image portrayed by the researcher.
Whilst we share their interest in the situated child, we sought to look through
the eyes of a child rather than the lens of adult researchers. We attempted
this quite literally, giving children cameras to highlight important aspects of
their lives. Before outlining our methodology, however, we consider
children's understanding of advertising and issues of advertising literacy.
Child Development and Children's Understanding of Advertising
Methodological differences have led to much debate about the development
of children's understanding with respect to advertising (Martin 1997, Gunter
and Furnham 1998). Summarising research in this area. Young (1998) notes

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

435

that preschoolers can make crude distinctions between TV advertising and

programmes. The age at which children appear capable of relating the basic
content of advertising to shopping ranges from two to five. Around the age
of six, children realize that ads exist to inform as well as to amuse, and eight
year olds tend to know that advertisers provide information in an
advocatory, rhetorical way. By middle to late childhood, there is usually an
understanding of advertising's advocatory, informative, and rhetorical
functions. By then.
The child has grown up and the easy metaphors of innocence and
immaturity, being subject to the onslaught of advertising, cannot be used
(Young 1998: 31)
The shadow of Jean Piaget looms large over the literature on children and
advertising, with his four-stage theory of child development (Piaget 1968)
dominating theoretical and empirical studies (Young 1990; Gunter and
Furnham 1998; Lawlor and Prothero 2002). Despite Piaget's influence on the
advertising literature, many developmental psychologists believe that his
methods and interpretations led him to underestimate or misconstrue
children's thinking, and that different tests can indicate greater competence
at younger ages (Donaldson, 1978; Wood, 1988). Two criticisms of Piaget's
work are particularly relevant to this paper. His theory holds that children's
thinking is different in kind from that of mature individuals. Wartella et al.
(1981) have pointed out that it is essentially a theory of deficits. Thus,
research in this tradition tends to explain findings in terms of children's
inabilities and inadequacies, neglecting children's own perspectives
(Buckingham 1993). Furthermore, although Piaget did not ignore social
influences on development, he focused on children as individual 'scientists'
who formulate and test hypotheses about their experiences (Smith, Cowie
and Blades 1998).
Thus, it seems that Piaget's dominance within the marketing literature has
not been particularly healthy, offering a partial and perhaps pessimistic
picture of children's powers with respect to advertising. A broader
perspective was provided recently by Roedder John (1999). Synthesizing
Piaget's stages with theories of information-processing and social
development, she builds a framework of children's consumer socialization
comprising three overlapping stages: perceptual (from 3 to 7 years),
analytical (from 7 to 11 years) and reflective (from 11-16 years). Impressive
as her synthesis is, there is plenty of scope for marketers to venture further
afield in the area of child development. Lawlor and Prothero (2002) refer to
studies of children's understanding of advertising intent as a much-travelled
road. We suggest that the Piagetian road is narrow, congested and suffering

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

from various potholes. To reach a fuller appreciation of children's

understanding of advertising, it seems that we need to veer off the road, and
make our own way around other theories of child development.
Useful antidotes to Piaget's focus on the individual child's cognitions are
provided by various theorists. For example, Erik Erikson's (1950, 1987)
psychosocial model considers the social and cultural context of child
development. He described the "epigenesis" or ground plan of human
psychological growth in terms of eight potential conflicts: trust versus
mistrust (birth to one year), autonomy versus shame and doubt (one to three
years), initiative versus guilt (four to five years), industry versus inferiority (6
to 11 years), identity versus identity confusion (12 to 18 years), intimacy
versus isolation (early adulthood), generativity versus self-absorption
(middle adulthood), and integrity versus despair (old age). Resolution of
each conflict creates a newly emergent part of our total personality. As we
develop and face these conflicts, our "radius of significant relations" expands
from maternal figures and family to include school, neighbourhood, peer and
outgroups, partners and eventually mankind. Given this paper's focus on
10-12 year-olds, the stages most relevant to this age group are ouflined
below.
Before children can become biological parents, they must learn to be
workers and providers. In school, children receive systematic instruction
and develop a sense of industry. The conflict here is between the joy of work
which provides power and mastery, and a sense of inferiority resulting from
unfavourable comparisons with other children. Resolving this conflict
involves cooperating with others so that a sense of competence and
achievement emerges from the successful completion of tasks. Adolescents
on the other hand face the turmoil of puberty and the apparently intangible
tasks of adult life. They attempt to resolve the conflict between identity and
identity confusion, and to align their own gifts with the occupational
prototypes available to them. Seeking self-definition, they turn to one
another, forming cliques and stereotyping themselves, their ideals and their
enemies. Adolescents seek the particular strength oi fidelity, the opportunity
to fulfill personal potential whilst remaining true to themselves and
significant others.
Erikson's work is not without criticism. His "identity crisis" has been
questioned on a number of counts, for example. Smith et al.. (1998) note that
it can occur throughout adult life and is often quite prominent in early adult
years. Furthermore, changes in most young people's identity and self-esteem
are gradual. Indeed, references to developmental 'stages' leave Erikson
vulnerable to some of the criticisms levelled at Piaget. Erikson however did
not see development as occurring in a straight line or by a series of
irreversible stages. Rather, the conflicts of each stage are resolved more or

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

437

less successfully, with the balance among them becoming the foundation for
the next stage. Unresolved conflicts may need to be revisited later.
The fluidity of Erikson's stages, together with his emphasis on social
interaction, human strengths and potential, provide a useful contrast to the
presumed inadequacies approach of Piaget's theory in considering children's
relationships with advertising (Wartella et al. 1981, Buckingham 1993). The
following section considers the active nature of those relationships and their
social and cultural contexts.
Advertising Literacy
As Oates, Blades and Gunter (2002) observe, the concept of advertising
literacy is useful in addressing what it means to understand advertising. The
term has been used in published work for two decades. Early accounts by
advertising practitioners described literacy as consumer sophistication in
decoding advertising (Meadows 1983, Lannon 1985). Young's (1990)
approach is more theoretically informed. He relates children's acquisition of
advertising literacy skills to their developing linguistic and
"metacommunicative" abilities. Moving into middle childhood, children
learn to stand back and consider the workings of language and
communication, including other people's perspectives and motivations. As
their understanding of language use and the intentions behind it develop,
they learn to look beyond literal interpretations and consider devices such as
metaphor, hyperbole, understatement, humour and irony. These
developments inform children's understanding of advertising, since such
language uses are prevalent in advertising.
Buckingham (1993) found evidence of seven to twelve year-olds'
advertising literacy as part of his examination of children and television. Far
from being "powerless victims of ideological manipulation", these children
emerged as active and cynical. All the groups except one of the youngest
defined advertising as a means of selling products, and generally
emphasised the persuasive functions of advertising. They commented on
advertisers' intentions and target audiences, the quality of particular
advertising executions, techniques and representations of reality. Indeed, the
focus groups were often a forum for "a kind of competitive display of cynical
wit at the expense of products and advertisements" (p.353). Aligning his
results with Young's (1990) view of advertising literacy, Buckingham viewed
the children's judgements about advertising as "manifestations of
metalinguistic competencies".
Young's discussion of advertising literacy resonates with the growing
importance of industry and the drive for competence in using cultural tools
emphasised by Erikson. More recent academic discussions of this
phenomenon widen the theoretical net to incorporate meaning-based

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

approaches to advertising consumption, reader-response and active audience

theories. Mick and Buhl (1992) suggest that our interpretations of ads are
informed by our life experiences, values and roles. Their study of three
Danish brothers offers empirical as well as theoretical support for the notion
that "[t]he motivations and meanings of life are mirrored in the motivations
and meanings of advertising experiences" (p.336).
Mick and Buhl acknowledge their debt to reader-response theories drawn
from literary criticism which address "how a text works with the probable
knowledge, expectations, or motives of the reader" (Scott, 1994: 463). A text's
meaning, then, is not given but constructed as the reader interacts with it.
While many different readings are possible, readers do not exist in isolation;
they are members of various "interpretive communities" (Fish 1980), sharing
reading strategies and applying learned textual conventions.
Appleyard (1991) takes a reader-response approach in exploring how
children become book readers. He proposes that as we mature, our reading
roles shift from 'Player' and 'Hero or Heroine', to 'Thinker', 'Interpreter', and
'Pragmatic reader'. As preschoolers listen to stories, for example, they
become players in fantasy worlds which they gradually learn to control.
Schoolchildren become central figures in a romance which they constantly
rewrite as their picture of the world develops. Stories present an alternative,
less ambiguous world than that of pragmatic experiences, and so they
immerse themselves in it. Adolescent readers approach stories as thinkers,
seeking authentic role models, values and beliefs worthy of commitment,
and insights into life's meaning.
Thus, Appleyard's developmental
framework offers tantalising glimpses of children as active readers of
advertising texts. Clark (1999:85) argues that children have "agency and
impact" in creating ad meanings; their readings draw on their experiences
and expectations of products, the narrative genre and symbolic elements of
advertising.
Recent academic discussions of advertising literacy build on these
perspectives, considering consumers' literacy skills as they are practised in
everyday life. For example, O'Donohoe and Tynan (1998) discussed how
young adults' literacy skills allowed them to adopt three roles - competent
consumers, surrogate strategists and casual cognoscenti - in their dealings
with ads and advertising. Crucially, their ability to switch between roles
allowed them to step outside the consumption role which advertisers
intended for them. Indeed, in an earlier paper, O'Donohoe (1994) identified
various non-marketing uses and gratifications which they obtained from
advertising. These highlighted the complex and often intensely social role of
advertising in the young adults' everyday lives: they used it for
entertainment, creative play and diversion, for example, and to scan their
environment. Ads served to reinforce, work through or express particular

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

439

attitudes and values. Understanding ads was sometimes a source of egoenhancement, and often a means of negotiating status and relationships with
others.
Ritson and Elliott (1995) highlight social aspects of advertising experience
by applying to advertising theories of literacy practices (Scribner and Cole
1981) and events (Heath 1983). Their practice account of advertising literacy
refers not only to our ability to understand and create meanings from ads,
but also to the particular purposes which that reading serves. Their events
account represents the social consumption of ad meaning - the interactions
and talk surrounding an ad after reception. They illustrate this in a later
paper reporting on an ethnographic study exploring the social uses of
advertising among sixth-form students (Ritson and Elliott 1999). Watching
ads was a prerequisite for participation in ad-based interaction with their
peers, and the ability to provide a meaningful interpretation of advertising
texts was a source of social power. The teenagers revealed their particular
viewpoints and identities to others by their evaluations and discussions of
liked and disliked ads. They also used advertising as a basis for ritualistic
interactions with others and as a source of metaphors for influencing the
perceptions of others and the "pecking order" within social groups.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence on children's use of literacy skills,
particularly for those who are not yet teenagers. However, several studies
indicate the active nature of children's relations with advertising. Thus,
observational research conducted by Reid and Frazer (1980a, 1980b) showed
how children used ads to draw others into conversations and activities, to
seek help from parents or siblings in interpreting complex messages, and to
avoid parental demands. Buckingham (1993) offers an interesting perspective
on children's use of TV advertising to obtain ideas for Christmas presents.
He argues for a reversal of the conventional wisdom on causality:
commercials do not create requests, but the need to generate product
requests requires more in-depth viewing of advertising. Finally, a study for
advertising agency J. Walter Thompson (Mathews 1995) indicates that
children use advertising for information or entertainment, as a source of
ideas for play or topics for conversation, to impress friends, to buy things for
themselves or persuade parents to do so.
Overall, then, meaning-based, reader response and advertising literacy
theories provide a useful perspective on children's active, socially and
culturally situated advertising experiences. The next section describes a
study drawing on these perspectives.
Methodology
Our qualitative, interpretive study of children's advertising experiences

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

sought to "look on advertising more thoroughly through the consumer's

eyes" (Mick and Buhl 1992: 317), and in the context of their broader lifeworlds. Mick and Buhl interviewed each of three Danish brothers about
their experiences of particular ads, subsequently conducting life history
interviews with them. We adapted their method, taking a child-centred
approach. Same-sex friendship groups of three formed the basis of the study,
which used a combination of photo diaries, individual interviews and small
group discussions.
Following a pilot study, research was conducted in a Scottish city between
1998 and 1999 with 39 children aged 10-12. Children in this age group are
generally considered able to appreciate advertising's commercial purposes
(Young 1998; Boush et al. 1994; Gunter and Furnham 1998). Indeed, Moore
and Lutz (2000:44) suggest that their
...relatively recently enhanced interpretive powers were allowing them a
deeper appreciation of the multiplicity of meanings that ads can convey,
and they were enjoying the exercise of this capacity.
The children in this study were either in P7, the last year of primary school or
SI, the first year of secondary school. Hobson (1999) describes this transition
as moving from being "king of the castle" to "one of the babies again".
Indeed, a recent report by HM Inspectors of Schools (1997) notes that the
move from primary to secondary school coincides with physical and
emotional changes as puberty approaches. Thus, 10-12 year-olds may have a
rich and complex relationship with advertising, since their cognitive abilities
are developing at a time of significant physical, emotional and social change.
Children were initially recruited through a school summer playscheme
where the first author worked as a volunteer. Three different schools were
subsequently chosen to reflect the diversity of children's experiences and life
chances: a private school (simply referred to as "Private"), the state school
(called "Corby" here) associated with the playscheme, which served a
broadly middle-class suburban population, and another ("Wetheral") in a
much less affluent area (60-70% of its primary school children received free
school meals). In each school, four friendship groups of three took part in
the study - tw^o P7 groups (one male, one female) and tw^o SI groups (again
one male, one female). School, parental and child consent was sought and
obtained for each stage of the study. Same-sex groups were used to reflect
natural patterns of social interaction amongst older primary schoolchildren
(Opie 1993) and to avoid problems of cross-gender communications between
participants (Krueger 1994; Sweeney 1994). In keeping with the emergent
research design of interpretive studies, an additional group of P7 Corby boys
was included because their interest in fantasy games contrasted with the
more usual boys' focus on sports and computer games. Since "different

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

441

contexts produce different types of stories.. .and different repertoires of social

competencies" (Green and Hart 1999), interviews and group discussions took
place in the children's homes. Although school is a large part of children's
lives, we sought to frame our study away from the formal educational
context it represents.
At an "icebreaker" session held at the play scheme or school, each child
was given a disposable camera, shown how to work it, and asked to
complete a "photo diary" featuring pictures of their bedroom and people,
things and activities important to them. Once this had been done, the
researcher called to their homes to collect the cameras. This provided another
opportunity to meet the children (and their parents) informally, this time on
their home ground. Two sets of photographs were developed. One was
given to the children and the other was used to drive phenomenological
interviews (Thompson et al. 1989) about their life-worlds. These interviews
lasted between 45 and 90 minutes, with most taking over an hour.
Incorporating the photoelicitation technique of autodriving (Heisley and
Levy 1991) gave us a window on the children's everyday lives, including the
"bedroom culture" so important to young people's developing identities
(Brown et al. 1994). It gave us quite literally a child's eye view, and it meant
that they, not we, set the agenda for discussing the people, things and
activities important to them.
Following the individual interviews, group discussions (generally lasting
between an hour and an hour and a half) were conducted. Researchers have
used focus groups to explore children's understanding of advertising
regulations (Preston 2000) and suggested their value in examining children's
understanding of advertising intent (Oates et al. 2002). Group discussions
were considered particularly appropriate here. They can communicate
respect and a lack of condescension to participants (Morgan and Kreuger
1993), encouraging them "...to generate their own questions, frames and
concepts and to pursue their ow^n priorities on their own terms, in their own
vocabulary" (Barbour and Kitzinger 1999). Small friendship groups were
used to put children at ease (Harris and Ward 2000), and to reflect the natural
context of social life (Barbour and Kitzinger 1999). The discussions began by
asking the children to talk about any ads which they particularly liked or
disliked. In the pilot study, some children were reluctant to volunteer ads
"off the top of their heads". Therefore, each child was asked to compile in
advance an "ad list" of at least eight ads they remembered. During the focus
groups, individual accounts of particular ads quickly gave way to lively
discussion, and this phase generally took up more than half of the time. Later
in the sessions, the children were asked how they would go about creating an
ad for an imaginary soft drink called Spike (an amalgamation of the brands
Sprite and Coke, suggested by a child in the pilot study). This phase of the

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

discussion tended to last between fifteen and twenty minutes, generating

detailed suggestions as well as comments about particular advertising styles,
strategies and conventions. Towards the end of the sessions, they were asked
to talk about some print ads which they had collected and given to the first
author at the time of the individual interviews. These were generally taken
from magazines related to particular interests (typically music, sports, and
computer games), and discussion revolved around what had struck them
about the ads. Drawing on fresh examples at this stage often allowed issues
raised earlier to be revisited and discussed further. Over the course of the
group discussions, then, using the ad lists. Spike exercise and print ads gave
the children several opportunities to express various facets of their
understandings and experiences with respect to advertising.
All interviews and group discussions were transcribed, yielding 1,400
pages of text to be loaded into the qualitative analysis package QSR
NUD*IST Vivo. Following Thompson et al. (1989), a phenomenological, partto-whole interpretation was undertaken, beginning with each life-world
transcript and moving out towards the advertising discussions.
Findings
Meeting the children, entering their homes, listening to them describe their
photos, and analysing the transcripts, it became apparent that they shared an
existential concern (Mick and Buhl 1992) with establishing and presenting to
the world an independent, competent self. Although human beings generally
seek a sense of power and control (Gleitman 1991) this quest may be
particularly urgent for children. Existing within an adult-run world may
lead to feelings of powerlessness and fantasies about power and achievement
(Matthews 1995, Eden 2000). Less extreme than Nietzsche's "will to power",
the drive identified here relates to school-aged children's need to resolve the
industry-irvferiority conflict (Erikson 1987).
The children had considerable command of advertising content and
concepts. In keeping with the advertising literacy perspective outlined
earlier, we do not focus on their skills in isolation, but on how these were
used to construct and communicate a sense of themselves as powerful
agents. The ubiquity of advertising gave the children common ground and
much raw material in this respect. The discussion below^ revolves around
three dimensions of power identified in the research - mastering, controlling
and criticizing - and how^ these shaped the children's experiences of
advertising.
Mastering
A strong drive towards self-mastery emerged from the children's
photographs and talk. The boys seemed particularly keen to display physical

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443

competence: their photo diaries contained many close-ups of themselves

"practicing wee skills" with their bikes, roller blades and football skills, and
they talked with pride about what they were able to do. Mental skills were
also valued, as highlighted by one girl's favourite T-shirt featuring the words
"You are no match for my superior intellect". "Superior intellect" was not
always associated with academic performance, but with detailed and often
obscure knowledge of subjects ranging from celebrities to motorbikes and
reptiles. Linked to the pleasure of demonstrating mastery to others was the
desire to win and be "the BEST". Their bedrooms and photos bore witness to
this desire, with medals, trophies, and certificates often displayed
prominently and discussed with pride.
The children's possessions (and the contents of their bedrooms in
particular) were implicated in the drive for mastery. Like the young people
interviewed by Csikzentimihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981), they
highlighted possessions focusing on active, instrumental and self-related
concerns. Important items, such as sports equipment, bedroom media and
special collections, emerged as extensions of the self (Belk 1988) and reflected
Erikson's (1987) central task in middle childhood of gaining competence and
confidence through making, doing and building.
Ad Masters
Like the young people in other studies (O'Donohoe and Tynan 1998;
Ritson and Elliott 1999), the children emerged as ad masters, using advertising
to demonstrate their interpretive and cultural competence. As discussed
below, playing the part of ad masters required three subsidiary roles to be
adopted: meaning masters, style masters and performance masters.

As meaning masters, the children understood that ads contained a

"message" or "point", and they often used phrases such as "which is meant
to represent". Like the "competent consumers" identified by O'Donohoe and
Tynan (1998), they enjoyed the challenge of working out "what they're trying
to say". Several children boasted that they had "got" complex ads the "first
time", or even the "second time, actually because the first time I wasn't really
looking". "Getting" the ad often meant understanding the "point" being
made about the featured brand, but in some cases the advertiser's identity
was crucial. For example, one P7 girl tested her friends' interpretive skills by
showing them a Hewlett Packard ad featuring an old pair of trainers, but
hiding the brand name. When they guessed incorrectly, she revealed the
brand, saying
...when I first saw it, I thought it was for an air freshener. But it's actually
for like the printer, cos it says "Only reality looks more real"...I thought it
was like well done, clever ....basically because you think it's an advert for

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

air freshener and then it's actually an advert for Hewlett Packard. (Girls,
P7, private)
When meanings were not understood, confessions such as that from a P7
Corby girl that "I haven't actually got that, I don't understand it" were made
reluctantly and meekly, often' followed by an embarrassed laugh. This
suggests that the children, like the teenagers and young adults in earlier
studies, experienced the satisfaction of possessing interpretive power and
feelings of inadequacy when it could not be displayed. The children also
displayed their skills in interpreting and manipulating advertising meaning
through the ads they suggested for Spike. Several children thought the brand
name implied that the product contained alcohol, "cos like you spike
people's drinks". They suggested many ways of dramatising the brand,
including "a hedgehog with lots of fruit stuck to its spikes". They also
recognized advertising's intertextuality (Cook 1992): a dog named Spike
from the Rugrats cartoon was suggested as an endorser by several groups,
and some boys adapted a Spice Girls song to create a jingle
SPIKE up your life... Every boy, every girl... Oooooooooooh! [laughter]
(Boys, SI, Wetheral)
Beyond the creative task, discussions of intertextuality included descriptions
of ads for Walkers crisps playing with footballers' personas, such as Vinnie
Jones's "hardman" and Gary Lineker's "Mr Good Guy".
Indeed,
commenting on the Salt and Lineker pack marketed by Walkers, one group
remarked "It'll be Smokey Beckham next!".
The children's discussions of ads highlighted other areas of competence.
Their awareness of various approaches earned them the title style masters.
For example, they categorized music into 'cheesy' jingles, pop songs, "70s
music", and "posh" or classical music. They also commented that music
could be used to "attract your attention", "catch in your head" or "help you
concentrate on what's actually trying to be sold". Humorous styles were also
dissected, with distinctions made betw^een 'stupid', 'silly', 'embarrassing',
'bizarre' and 'rude' executions, for example. "Rude" and "stupid" ads held
greater appeal for the boys than for the girls, who tended to present
themselves as above such things.
The children also demonstrated mastery of ad styles through their
suggested ads for Spike. Approaches based on themes of obsession and
transformation, were common. Obsession-based approaches were seen as a
humorous way of conveying product desirability. Thus, P7 Corby boys
created an ad "just for girls" revolving around a boy so desperate to drink
Spike that "he even dresses up as a GIRL" who had "LIPSTICK on.

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

445

smothered all over his face". Spike was also presented as a catalyst for
transformation. This sometimes took the form of transporting drinkers from
apathy and boredom to a vibrant party atmosphere, or from social isolation
to acceptance. For example, an SI girl from private school proposed an ad
portraying someone covered in spikes who was "sort of stared at" until he
drank Spike and was shown "playing snooker or something with all his
mates in the bar". One of the most popular approaches, however, was to
portray the drink as transforming someone's performance. Thus a group of
P7 Corby girls made an interesting association between Spike and the
Olympic sport of javelin throwing, suggesting the ad portray an athlete's
performance being transformed by drinking Spike. Such suggestions
highlight not only the children's mastery of advertising styles, but also the
allure of the mastery theme in ad content. Ads showing children in positions
of power and authority were often recalled and recounted in detail,
particularly w^hen they showed children controlling adults. Particularly wellreceived was an for Dairy Lea (cheese spread) where a child "shrinks the
teacher down to a small little miniature thing!".
The third ad master role adopted by the children was that of performance
masters. As Buckingham (1993) also found, the children derived great
pleasure from acting out ads, singing jingles, and repeating catchphrases.
Cries of "This tastes BOGGIN'", "You beauty!", or "Let's see that again"
suffused the discussions, and came complete with amplified accents and
manic movements. Budweiser's frog ads were regularly imitated as a
complete artistic work by boys and girls of both ages. Though it is hard to
recreate on the page eleven year-olds imitating American frogs, this was a
typical rendition:
D: But what about the other one, the Budweiser one? "BUD WEIIS ERR"
[imitates in low, deep croaky voice].
A: Yeah, there's a Budweiser right. And all the frogs' right they're all
sitting on little lily pads. And they're going "BUD WEIIS....". They're
trying to say Budweiser... [All laughing while he describes and imitates
it]. And then they start going "BUD WEIIS BUD". And then they go
"BUD WEIIS BUD WEIIS ERR". And by the end another frog goes.
"ERR" and they go "URR". "BUD WEIIS ERR!"
D: And there's another one when the frog's looking for a girlfriend and
he goes "BUD" [imitates low croaky voice]. And he goes hopping along
the lily pad. And then he hears "WEIIS" [imitates high female voice].
And then he jumps along because he's following the voice...And then he
finds the girl and he goes "BUD" and she goes "WEIIS" and he goes
"ERR!" [They laugh]. (Boys, P7, Corby)

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

Various developmental theorists have linked play with the achievement of

competence (Smith et al. 1998). This certainly seemed the case here: imitating
characters and singing jingles were regarded as distinct skills to be acquired,
displayed and admired. This was underlined by comments such as "Yeah, L.
is really good at Budweiser". Narrating ad storylines also appeared to be a
valued skill. Great emphasis was placed on the correct recall of plots,
characters, visual and verbal elements, often in minute detail. The
discussions were therefore characterised by regular interruptions and
corrections made by other members of the group.
Controlling
The second dimension of power, controlling, was seen in the children's
desire for independence and their attempts to distance themselves from
childhood. Various photographs showed the children as employees or pet
owners, and they emphasised responsibilities such as delivering newspapers,
cleaning rabbit hutches and feeding pets. They photographed and talked
proudly about possessions such as bicycles which gave them a sense of
independence. There were also many references to going shopping or to
school unaccompanied by parents. Independence from parents was also
expressed through the moulding of their appearance. For example, one
group discussed a classmate who wore pink to please her mother and "didn't
really make her own decisions". The ripping of psychic umbilical cords was
almost audible in the following exchange:
J: Like J is like a mummy's girl [others groan]. Like she will do anything
for her mum...And like her mum wants her to wear pink non-stop, so she
does it...She doesn't really make her own decisions...Her mum makes all
the decisions...I know like our mums do want to like look after us and
things but L: We've got to make our own choice.
J: You're just not going to wear pink every day.
A: ...Her mum used to, like when I used to go to her house and things, I
used to chose my own clothes and her mum, she used to like lay out her
clothes for her. And if she didn't wear that she w^ould get a row...
J: And she's eleven and she still has to do it.... (Girls, P7, Corby).
Reflecting the control it offers, money was a popular topic of discussion.
Great emphasis was placed on pocket money rising with age; one girl
complained bitterly that her two younger brothers received the same amount
as herself. Another aspect of control related to emotional maturity, not least
in facing fears. Buckingham (1996) notes the adult status offered by horror
films. The horror genre, either in book or film form, seemed to be used in

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

447

this way here. Playing the hero or heroine (Appleyard 1991), the
seemed to immerse themselves in the fear experience and test their
There was also much discussion of roUercoaster rides: many
recounted with glee their own bravery in marked contrast
"feardycat" parents!

children
courage.
children
to their

Ad Controllers
Reflecting their sense of being in control, the children often presented
themselves as ad avoiders. Thus, many children, particularly in Wetheral,
initially claimed that they "dinnae really watch adverts". They then
accounted for their recall of many ads in great detail by saying that "you see
so many ads", and "they're just hard to avoid". However, they saw
themselves as attending to ads selectively, with a variety of strategies at their
disposal. For example:
E: If there's anything on like that Landmark one with that annoying jingle
I just turn the TV off. I mean problem solved!
L: I just walk out of the room cos most of the time other people are
watching...
E: I tend to put my fingers in my ears but it doesn't work so I bury my
head under the couch. (Girls, SI, private)
The children also adopted the role of independent consumers. Unanimously
claiming that advertising did not influence them, they emphasized their
control over purchasing decisions. Many ads were "rubbish" or "boring", but
it was conceded that advertising often "makes you laugh". This sense of
separate ad and brand consumption (Nava and Nava 1990) seemed another
way for the children to experience power over the text. Indeed, consistent
with Pollay's (1986) "myth of personal immunity", they shared with
Buckingham's (1993) informants the belief that advertising influenced others
rather than themselves. The children sometimes presented themselves as
more knowledgeable, informed and restrained than adults. Thus, P7 boys
from Corby claimed that "Dad just watches them and buys things", and that
one of their mothers came out of the supermarket with "ten trolley loads of
stuff" after watching ads. Those most susceptible to advertising however
were thought to be "young children", "four or five year-olds", "kids" or "my
wee brother". Thus, an SI boy from Wetheral told a story he had heard about
a "wee laddie" who "grated his heid^" copying an animated character in a
Peperami ad. Gullibility was considered a thing of the past for 10-12 yearolds, however:
^head

448

Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

I: Do you often feel that you're misled by ads?

D: Yeah but I don't believe them anymore.
I: So why don't you believe them now?
A: Because we're eleven years old!
D: Because we're not dumb now!
A: We used to be [laughs]. (Boys, P7, Corby)
Criticising
The children often presented themselves as detached onlookers of the
media, keen to criticise and analyse media content and the degree of
"realism" presented. This reflects Appleyard's (1991) role of the reader as
thinker in adolescence, when a crucial yardstick for assessing stories is the
extent to which they are true to life. Thus, the TV programme Friends was
liked because it was "so realistic", whereas one of the appeals of The Simpsons
was that generally "the things that happen on it couldn't really happen in
real life, which makes it funny as well". The children also used measures of
realism to reassure themselves when watching horror films, reminding each
other that they were "not real life". Some deconstructed the action by
focusing on special effects or the genre's conventions:
I liked Scream but that wasn't that scary, it was kinda corny cos it was
predictable what was going to happen...there's always gonna be an attack
on a girl and she's always gonna be sitting alone, she'll either be watching
a scary movie or she'll be in her bed. And he'll always phone and he'll go
"helloo" and then he'll say her name and then they'll get freaked... (Boy,
P7, private).
Such assessments of media content appeared to serve as a distancing tool for
the children, giving them greater power over the text.
Ad Critics
Critical judgements about advertising established the children researched
by Buckingham (1993) as 'wise consumers', distanced from advertising. As
ad critics, the children in this study shifted between the roles of precocious
planners, tactical technicians and reality questioners.

Younger versions of "surrogate strategists" (O'Donohoe and Tynan 1998),

the children in this study could be seen as precocious planners. Although an
explanation of advertisers' aims was not directly requested of them (in the
pilot study, children expressed resentment at being asked such "obvious"
questions) they mentioned such issues in passing and when creating ads for
Spike. Products were generally seen to be advertised "to get you to buy
them". The need to create innovative, 'eye-catching' material which "got

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

449

your attention" and stimulated brand recall was also stressed.

Understanding that ads targeted different groups, the children discussed
ways of appealing to different ages and genders. Ads made "to appeal to
yotmg children" were thought to feature young child actors, bright colours
and "wee cartoons". Aware that many ads targeted their age group, they
explained this partly in terms of their future spending power, since "we're
the next generation". To attract their attention, they suggested that ads
needed to be "funny", "rude", "colourful", "original" or accompanied by a
good "tune". Ads directed to boys and girls were expected to feature
children of the corresponding gender, although models of the opposite sex,
such as "hunky men" or a "19 year old girl with a really really short skirt",
could also work. Thus, a girl ticked off the components of effective
advertising for her football-loving, male-obsessed friends:
You just put a football one on and then put a Celtic top on, right. Or a
Rangers or Hearts top, right. And you get the BEST-looking, tidiestlooking guys, right, and you've got it just perfect. (Girls, SI, Wetheral)
The children sometimes presented themselves as tactical technicians,
discussing and evaluating technical aspects of ads with enthusiasm.
Discussions of stories behind ads and explanations of "the way they'd done
it" recalled the 'casual cognescenti' in O'Donohoe and Tynan's (1998) study.
Thus, footballer Paul Gascoigne's dramatic crying performance in a Walkers
crisps ad was created by "pipes going up to his eyes" which were later
"blanked out". Other "tricks", such as reforming crushed cars in insurance
ads, were described in considerable detail:
...And the way they'd done it is they'd crushed a car and the bloke
advertising it had to learn to talk backwards, and walk backwards, and
get in the car backwards and things. And it was just really well done cos
it looked like it had been forward and they made the car out of all the
rubble. (Girls, SI, private)
A variety of technical details were incorporated into the children's creative
ideas for Spike, and they often referred to "camera angles", "close-ups",
"clips", "split screens", "flashbacks", "editing" or "computer-generated"
effects. If they lacked the precise terminology to describe something, they
explained the technical processes in their own language. Thus a dubbed
commercial "took the sound away and put different voices in". Regardless of
their accuracy, the children's desire to share stories and technical insights
may again be explained in terms of advertising serving as a source of
material to be mastered and displayed to peers.
The final dimension of the ad critic role was that of reality questioners.

450

Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

Young (1998), notes that distinguishing reality from representation is the

foundation of television literacy. For these children, issues of reality often
coloured their views of advertising. There was much discussion about the
convention of product glamorization, with several suggested ads portraying
Spike in an almost sacred light:
An' then he jumps up an' opens the fridge... You see the BIG bottle of
'Spike' an' it's all SHINING.... (Boys, P7, Corby)
There appeared to be a fine line between product glamorization and
misrepresentation, however. Consistent with other studies of children
around this age, considerable scepticism about advertising was evident
(Boush et al. 1994; Buckingham 1993; Preston 2000). Some ads were seen to
bear little relation to the product in reality:
G: But that's another thing, in the McDonalds adverts they always seem
to have a big massive burger....
N: ... I know they've got a huge burger and when you really get it it's all
small...
(Boys, SI, private)
Such scepticism led to speculation about how advertisers could make
products look so effective. Discussing a Gillette ad, some girls suggested that
the actor shaved before the ad was filmed. Several children were so
convinced that ads, especially on TV, "just make up a load of stuff", that they
used terms like "scam" and "set-up" to describe them. Indeed, some had
devised rules for interpreting "false" ads:
"While stocks last", usually means that they don't have any left so they
just want you to come to the store and buy. That's basically it. (Girls, SI,
private)
Perhaps due to such general scepticism, the children sometimes challenged
the realism of minute details in ads. An SI girl from Wetheral criticised a
scene in a Hooch ad where a man screamed after being stung by a mosquito,
saying "it cannae hurt that much", while her Corby counterpart picked up a
continuity error in an ad for Herbal Essence shampoo. The ad featured a
woman washing her hair in an airplane toilet, and when she emerged "her
hair's dry. She's had a shower and there's no hairdryer!". As in
Buckingham's (1993) study, a mocking tone often crept into the children's
comments. The "Daz Doorstep challenge" for example incited disparaging
renditions of lines such as "It WE ALLY works" and "Daz brightens up your

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

451

life". This may be interpreted as a means of demonstrating their ability to

see through advertising's persuasive attempts, and emphasizing that they,
rather than advertisers, were in control.
Conclusions
This paper has argued for a contextualised, meaning-based approach to
researching children's' understanding of advertising and reported on a
qualitative study using photo diaries, individual interviews and group
discussions to explore 10-12 year-olds' advertising and life-world
experiences.
Whilst this study carmot make claims about how all, or indeed other,
children interact with advertising, it suggests the depth and richness of 10-12
year-olds' understandings of advertising, and the benefits of research
adopting a child's perspective. Exploring children's understanding of
advertising from their vantage point made visible their ability to play a
number of roles in dealing with it. Three main roles - ad masters, ad
controllers and ad critics - were identified, and within these the children
played many parts. They emerged as meaning masters, style masters, and
performance masters; as ad avoiders and independent consumers; and as
precocious plarmers, tactical technicians, and reality questioners. Like the
young adults discussed by O'Donohoe and Tynan (1998), the children
slipped in and out of these roles as the occasion demanded, and each role
offered a degree of power in their dealings with advertising.
To some extent, the findings here should not surprise practitioners, who
have long argued that children - particularly of the age studied here - are
sophisticated consumers of advertising (Gray 1999, Edling 1999). Some
practitioners have already recognized the importance of the mastery theme
in middle childhood (Mathews 1995), reflecting this in ads which offer
children vicarious experiences of control. The range of roles which the
children adopted in relation to advertising might still surprise practitioners,
however. The degree of children's cynicism, and the extent to which their
quest for power distances them from advertising's commercial content, may
be a cause for concern. Furthermore, the children's understanding of
advertising themes, techniques and conventions mean that advertisers
cannot afford complacency or condescension to creep into their advertising
executions or research practice.
Policy-makers may feel reassured that these children had a welldeveloped understanding of advertising, seeking to be in control of it and
distancing themselves from its commercial content. Several issues merit
attention however. First, the pervasiveness of advertising was reinforced by
the children's willingness to use it as a social and cultural resource. If

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

children are not as immune to its persuasive power as they believe, this
increases concerns about its insidious influence. Such influence may extend
beyond product desire to the social content of advertising communication
(Leiss et al. 1990). Secondly, the cynicism which the children expressed
about advertising suggest little awareness of or faith in the regulation of
commercial speech. More positively, the study suggests that the playfulness
with which the children approached advertising - and the desire to achieve
mastery - may be harnessed in advertising education.
Turning to implications for theory and research, it seems that rigid tests of
advertising understanding, based on deficit models of child development,
may lead researchers to overlook the sophisticated and quite reflective grasp
of the genre that even the youngest children in this study demonstrated.
This study also suggests that children's advertising literacy skills are
anchored in their broader life-world experiences. In particular, the children's
advertising experiences reflected and were shaped by the drive for power
and control in their everyday lives. The emergence of power as a life theme
(Mick and Buhl 1992) is consistent with Erikson's (1987) view of the conflict
at this life stage between industry and inferiority. In this context, advertising
served as a valuable cultural resource for developing and demonstrating
power.
The advertising roles played by the children echoed those adopted by the
young adults in O'Donohoe and Tynan's (1998) study, offering some support
for the popular notion of children "getting older younger" (Gray 1999). This
is not to say that they had grasped all the nuances of advertising strategy and
techniques evident in the young adults' discussion. The young adults also
tended to be more reflective, recognizing for example that advertising might
influence them more than they realized. While there was certainly scope for
refinement in the children's' understanding, firm foundations were evidently
in place. Indeed, it seemed that the children were not just precocious
planners. Their reading of some advertising texts indicated that they were
adopting the position of thinker, which Appleyard (1991) associated with
older adolescents. Similarly, while much of their discussion could be related
to the drive for competence characteristic of their life stage (Erikson 1987),
the quest for fidelity associated with adolescents also seemed well underway.
Many of the children's comments about people, things and advertising
suggested that their identities were serious works-in-progress. If children are
indeed "getting older younger", it is important that age/stage theories of
child development are monitored - and modified if necessary - to ensure that
they reflect this.
Space constraints mean that despite a research design emphasizing the
importance of context, we have focused in this paper on similarities rather
than differences between the children taking part in the study. In fact, little

Everything Under Control: A Child's Eye View of Advertising

453

difference in understanding was evident across the age, school and gender
divides here. The older children's advertising accounts tended to be more
nuanced, for example, but there certainly appeared to be no massive leap in
understanding between the P7 and SI children. The gradual increase in
detailed understanding is consistent with the findings of Bousch et al. (1994)
regarding early adolescents' "schemer schema". In general, regardless of
age, school or gender, the children were united in their quest for power, their
use of advertising to that end, and their versatility in adopting a range of
roles with respect to advertising. Having said that, the Wetheral children
appeared less inclined to adopt the role of reality questioners. This echoes
Buckingham's (1993) finding that working class children were less likely to
perform as cynical, "wise consumers". He attributes this not to any
diminished ability to see through advertising on their part, but to their
having less invested in being able to demonstrate such ability. In this study,
the Wetheral children generally appeared less engaged with advertising,
although there were some exceptions, and their interviews and group
discussions tended not to last as long as those from Corby or private school.
This may reflect different attitudes to advertising, but it could also reflect
different educational opportunities relating to expressive style and the
articulation of ideas. It may also reflect the greater social distance between
the Wetheral children and the first author than was evident elsewhere. In any
case the most striking differences observed in this study were not between
children from different schools, but between boys and girls. However, these
differences related more to the nature and extent of their involvement with
advertising than to their understanding of the genre. In line with the
literature on gendered reading styles (Stern 2000), girls tended to be more
emotionally involved with advertising and more interested in the characters,
music and generally the minutiae of particular ads. Boys, on the other hand,
exhibited a keen interest in the chronological sequence of ads, and in
providing precise, humorous accounts of these to each other.
Finally, although this has been described as a child's eye study, we should
not delude ourselves that we can be one with them or cast off our own, hardearned worldviews for theirs (Fine and Sandstrom 1988:9). We can however
listen, watch and learn, and do so carefully and respectfully. The
photoelicitation technique employed here indicates the potential for enlisting
children more actively in the research process. However, there is still great
scope for further ethnographic studies in this area. We hope that our
research has done more than scratch the surface, but there is much mining to
be done.

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Alice Bartholomew and Stephanie O'Donohoe

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About the Authors

Alice Bartholomew carried out her postgraduate studies at The University of
Edinburgh, where she completed her PhD on children and advertising in
2001. She has previously worked at The University of Strathclyde as a
researcher on a children's road safety project, and at an Edinburgh-based
advertising agency as an account planner. Alice is currently working as a
freelance qualitative researcher and photographer.
Stephanie O'Donohoe is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at The University of
Edinburgh. Her research interests include young consumers' experiences of
advertising, the contribution of the reading metaphor to our understanding
of advertising consumption, and consumption symbolism in bereavement.
Her work has been published in various journals, edited volumes and
conference proceedings. The recent birth of Fergal gives Stephanie a personal
as well as professional interest in children's experiences of advertising!