How CSR claims in advertising affect children’s preferences and purchase intentions

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

This research project aims at studying the impact of the use of CSR claims in advertising towards children, by analyzing the impact of different executional cues of an advertisement created for this purpose. We measured the impact on the following independent variables: attitude towards the product and the advertisement, perceived healthiness of the product, package evaluation and purchase intention. An experiment was conducted with 193 children from 10 to 12 years old, controlling the individual variables related to environmental concern and previous social responsible behaviour of the child. Results showed significant correlations between the independent variables analyzed, and a negative impact in attitude towards the product caused by the introduction of two CSR claims in the case of girls. Moreover, the high level of environmental concern and participation of children was confirmed. Based on these results, some lines of actions are suggested.