Children Perception on TV Advertisement: The Impact of Age, Gender and Parental Influence

This study examined two components of understanding TV advertising: the recognition of the difference between programmes and commercials and the comprehension of advertising intent. ANOVA analyses were performed to assess the effect on age, gender, parent-child interaction and parental control over children of TV programme watching. Research found that majority of children aged between five and eight have some understanding of TV advertising, they are capable in differentiate programme and commercials especially if this understanding is measured by non-verbal rather than verbal measure. However, the results based on verbal measures are not as conclusive. The findings also indicated that children age has substantial positive effect on the children understanding of TV advertising. This effect pronounced for verbal measure of comprehension intent for advertisements. Results also showed a small but significant negative effect of parental control of TV viewing, in which a high control of TV viewing result in a relatively low understanding of TV advertising.