Mothers’ Attitudes toward 900-Number Advertising Directed at Children

Abstract

Although advertising directed at children has been a highly researched topic, no published studies to date have specifically investigated advertisements that encourage children to call 900-telephone numbers. As a result, the authors study parents’ attitudes toward such advertisements (and other promotional activities) directed at children. Their findings on the basis of responses from over 370 mothers in three distinct regions of the United States suggest that parents are extremely negative toward advertisers’ use of 900-numbers in children's advertising. In fact, their results indicate that maternal attitudes toward these advertisements are substantially more negative than other controversial promotional activities directed at children (e.g., toy-based programs). The authors also find that parental attitudes were largely unaffected by demographic, media usage, and parental style factors.