Understanding kids - A marketing Research

Perspective
To understand the motivations, drivers and influences that effect kids and their consumption

Across the globe, kids are emerging as a homogenous consumer cluster of their own and India
is no exception.

In every country, peer group factor and mass media has huge impact on children's consumption, brand
choice and on deciding trends.

Asian parents are coming to terms with this new millennium kid and striving to strike a balance between
being understanding, modern parents and overindulging their children and spoiling them. Leveraging this
delicate and often conflicting parent-child-peer group dynamic to gain maximum brand advantage is a
key issue for marketers across categories.

Importance of kids as consumers

In a time of Harry Potter, kids today have more money, more choice, more knowledge and know how than
ever before, it is unsurprising that marketers and advertisers are trying to understand and harness 'pester
power' and how this can be leveraged to sell everything and anything from bubble gum to cars.

What needs to be seen is that with vastly divergent socio-economic and cultural mores, would Indian kids
be the same brand conscious, precocious, net savvy consumers as their counterparts in Singapore or
China? Do parents, peer-pressure; media shape their attitudes, behavior and concept of cool to the same
degree?

To understand the motivations, drivers and influences that effect kids and their consumption
specific to the region, MCI (Media Consumer Insights, a specialist arm of Group M) Asia Pacific
carried out a study across APAC countries. The survey was done using consumer e-Sights:
respondents (parents) were contacted by email and asked to fill in a structured questionnaire
online. The responses across countries were analyzed to generate insights for each country and
the region as a whole.

All my friends have it…

The key point emerging from across the region was that kids buying behaviour is highly influenced by
their immediate peer group: 72% of the respondents felt their child/children decided their
purchases basis what their friends said.

Parents had considerably less influence.

Media
Among mass media, television emerged as the key medium with 66% of respondents saying that TV
advertising influenced their kids. Interestingly, in India, the TV actually scored higher than peer group
(77% vs. 68%). Also, surprisingly, fewer Indian parents felt that their views affected their child's purchase
behaviour than in the region as a whole (parents influence scoring a 35% in India vs. 41% for APac)
And though they may be Net generation, the Internet scores only 15 % and 9 % in terms of influencing
kid's consumer behaviour in AP and India respectively.

Take them shopping

Taking your kids along when shopping is asking for trouble as 44% of are bent on buying what they see at
the shop.

Pocket Money
Indian parents were less inclined to give their children pocket-money: only 36% gave a fixed allowance to
their kids vs. 54% of respondents in other countries.
The amount of pocket money is usually pegged by comparing with their friends.

Do children 'plan purchases' and save their money? The rest of the regions kids seem better money
managers in this regard vs. Indian children-26 % of the Indian respondents said their child spends their
weekly allowance vs. 14% in other countries where kids often prefer to save up for something they want.
In terms of what the child buys with his 'discretionary dollar or bhat or rupee' the patterns seem to be the
same: toys and sweets are most popular across.
Sweets and confectionaries are more important in India whereas some of their South East Asian
counterparts are more skewed to clothes, cassettes and CDs.
The big difference is in computer games which are half as popular among kids in India.

As home computer penetration increases, this gap is likely to diminish.

Conditional Independence
The differing attitude of parents is a key factor on what products children buy and do:
Parents are keenly conscious of over indulging their children and 'spoiling' them. There is a strong degree
of unanimity and uniformity across countries in allowing kids some degree of freedom without giving in
totally when they hanker for toys or computer games, clothes, outings or snacks and junk food.
Irrespective of country, they usually choose what to buy and how much to spend on most occasions but
the child does get the occasional treat or is allowed to make his/her own choice.
Indian parents seem to be slightly stricter than other countries.
When it comes to clothes/shoes, Indian mums and dads give in less to their kids: only 26% of them said
that they buy whatever their kids ask for as opposed to other countries where 34% of parents left it totally
to their kids.
In matters of food, Indian parents definitely exercise more control-16% of them brook absolutely no
argument about what their child should eat vs. 7% for other countries.
Implications for marketers
Differences do exist for India vs. the rest of the region but they are not as stark as they were in the pre-
satellite and pre-Net, pre-global era!
Kids form affluent homes in India are very much the same as their toddler and tween friends across Asia.
Just as the concept of the Global Teen, became a reality, where trends, fashions, fads, icons, and
symbols of 'coolness' became more and more similar from Beijing to Bangalore…the Global Tween
seems to be emerging.

The MTV generation Gen X being succeeded by the Cartoon Network Gen Y and Z.

Key drivers for children today are not so much their siblings or family but their friends and peers, much
like teens. Assimilation into the 'group' is vital be it in terms of their toys, their clothes or the foods they
eat.
This is as true in India as anywhere else…the imperative for marketers hence being to position their
products as something it would be so 'uncool' to be without.
Recent success of consumer promos involving 'collectibles' seems to validate this…its crushing not to
own a set of freebie stickers/toys that your friends have-and the more the merrier.

The 'viral' effect plays an extremely important role in any children targeted product or communication, far
more than for other 'adult' consumer segments: for a proposition that clicks with them, their spending
becomes contagious.

With the high degree of peer pressure, identifying kids icons also becomes imperative in marketing:
building promotions and communications around the latest fad will work well among this target audience.
However the pulse of the audience has to be regularly checked to gauge whether Pokemon or Spiderman
is the flavour of the month. Children offer the best bets to pull off a market driving promo.

The power of television is significantly higher in India…possibly a paucity of other entertainment options
or excursions and outings could be the reason.
TV by far is the medium of choice: the inherent cost-efficiency of TV coupled with the huge quantum of
children specific programming now available makes it the best bet for communicating to kids.

Gatekeepers
Parents still hold the purse strings. When it comes to ultimately paying, the child's, 'discretionary'
funds will not cover items beyond sweets and confectionaries. especially with the Indian child's
lower propensity to save for big ticket items.
Any proposition to the child should not alienate the parent. Indian parents are especially concerned with
their children understanding the 'value of money' and are more apprehensive of future behavioral
problems if they spoil their kids then immediate effects.
Everywhere, parents seem to be striving more to reason with their kids than 'just say no.' Teaching
concepts like performance-reward, prioritizing purchases and managing money: rather than
'ordering/commanding' seem to be the favored ways of dealing with a nagging child. The consensus
seems to that kids today are smarter and hence must be dealt with more maturity and reason than before.
Advertisers and marketers must walk a fine line - between what's hip and what's beneficial - to satisfy
both these consumer constituencies.

For many categories this may translate to a two pronged approach: differential communication through
differential media addressing both parents and children would be called for- the audience investment ratio
to be dictated by the relative magnitude of influence of each audience (usually higher outlay products
skewed to parents).

It is clear however, that the dual audience issue has to be tackled. Success or failure of any 'kids'
brand will depend on how well or badly this is executed.