The Influence of Perceived Personalization in TV Advertising Targeting Children on Parental Advertising Mediation: Implications for Addressable TV Advertising

Abstract

Parents understand and are concerned about the influence that personalized advertising, designed to more directly engage and influence their children, is having on the youngest consumers. Research on antecedents of parental advertising mediation primarily focuses on individual consumer factors (e.g., parents’ sense of empowerment and locus of control), while largely overlooking the forms of advertising that are catalysts for the mediation of children’s advertising exposure. The present study empirically examines these two factors—a specific form of advertising (i.e., personalized advertising that targets children via addressable TV) and individual factors (i.e., perceptions of children’s susceptibility to those personalized messages)—and their combined influence on the active or restrictive advertising mediation of 147 parent respondents of children ages three to 12. Findings indicate that parents’ perceptions that an ad that is personalized to their children positively influences their active and restrictive advertising mediation behaviors. The results also indicate that this influence, in the case of restrictive advertising mediation, is partially mediated by the belief that their children are susceptible to the message. These findings suggest that both parents’ perceptions about the personalized nature of TV ads as well as the intuited susceptibility of their children to such messages play a role in determining parents’ advertising mediation behaviors. Practical and theoretical implications are also discussed.