Children nowadays spend many hours online watching YouTube videos wherein their favorite vloggers are enjoying games, unboxing toys, reviewing merchandise, making jokes or simply going about their daily activities. These vloggers consistently post beautiful and unique content material in the hope of building a massive follower base. Although many of these vloggers are adults, the variety of child vloggers is flourishing. The famous child vlogger Ryan of Ryan’s World, for instance, has more than 19 million viewers and he is at age seven a social media influencer. The popularity of these vloggers incited advertisers to come with them as a new marketing verbal exchange tool, also called influencer advertising and marketing, of their marketing strategy.
Accordingly, many influential vloggers now receive free products from brands in return for a mention in one of their videos and their other social media e. g. , TikTok or Instagram and some are even paid to create a backed post or video and distribute it to their fans. This backed content seems to be highly influential and may affect young children’s brand alternatives. Given the limited promoting literacy skills i.
e. , knowledge of advertising and talents to seriously replicate in this advertising of kids under age 12, they are a susceptible target group when it involves persuasion. Therefore, caution is needed when implementing this advertising tactic to focus on them. However, analysis on how influencer advertising impacts young children under 12 is scarce and it is doubtful how these young children can be empowered to severely cope with this fairly new form of persuasion. This paper therefore aims to shed light on why and how social media influencers have persuasive power over their young fans.
The paper starts with providing insights into how and why social media influencers became a new source in advertising. We then discuss the few studies that have been conducted on influencer advertising among young children under 12, based on a systematic literature review, and take these findings to formulate societal and policy implications and grow a future analysis agenda. Today, children have numerous alternatives for virtual entertainment and social media. YouTube in certain, has emerged as a platform for kids’s screen time and an alternate for classic tv TV content material Watson, 2019. As an illustration, 81% of U.
S. folks let their kids under 11 watch YouTube Pew Research Center, 2018, where they are exposed to advertising before they watch a video, and more and more, brands are found within the videos, too Weiss, 2018. YouTube offers new chances for brands to interact with kids and their folks, adding embedded advertising formats containing subtle brand integrations in pleasing media content, making them less intrusive, and thus harder to determine Hudders et al. , 2017. For instance, Ryan’s World1, which points a young boy reviewing branded toys and products, was the 6th most watched YouTube site for children, with greater than 19 million viewers April 2019; Clement, 2019. Given the recognition and capacity to arrive young viewers online, virtual advertising spending for children reached 900 million U.
S. dollars in 2018 and is forecast to augment in the future Guttmann, 2019. The stars of social media, also referred to as vloggers on YouTube, are getting crucial influencers for the consumption judgements of their young audiences. They give their followers an insight into the brands they love and use in their way of life or even give direct advice on the merchandise their followers should use or not use De Jans et al. , 2019. Because of their reach and the credibility they exude, many brands have added these influencers, who are sometimes kids themselves e.
g. , Stella and Blaise, The McClure Twins, AnnieLeblanc, or EvanTubeHD, to their advertising and marketing innovations. Although these endorsers may seem like “normal” children, some are actually highly paid endorsers, for example, Ryan earning $22 million in 2018 Robehmed and Berg, 2018. This is as a result of, in return for free promotional goods or charge, brands ask these influencers to endorse their items on their social media profiles on their feed or in their memories on Instagram, videos on YouTube and TikTok, or Facebook updates, etc. and their YouTube channels in turn earn promoting gross sales because of their large audiences.
This is a phenomenon which has been referred to as influencer advertising and marketing De Veirman et al. , 2017. This variety of advertising – the influencers’ social media contributions – is regarded as a variety of promoting when 1 influencers obtain a reimbursement free items or economic payment and 2 advertisers have control over the content, which also contains simple final approval of the post or general directions in regards to the post e. g. , I want two posts about our product.
This definition of influencer advertising are located in the guidelines of a few promoting self regulatory bodies e. g. , EASA, 2018. Brands appear within influencers’ content material as seamless implied endorsements. Hence, the branded content or promoting is fully integrated in the media content material kids are consuming Hudders et al. , 2017; De Jans et al.
, 2019. Moreover, despite clear checklist from governmental regulators for obligatory disclosures of these endorsements e. g. , Federal Trade Commission in the U. S. , influencers often do not appropriately disclose the industrial nature of their posts Children’s Advertising Review Unit, 2017; De Veirman et al.
, 2019. Ryan’s World, for example, was recently accused of deceiving children through “sponsored videos that usually have the appear and feel of organic content material” in an legit complaint by the watchdog group Truth in Advertising, filed with the Federal Trade Commission Hsu, 2019. As a result, kids Folkvord et al. , 2019 and even fogeys Evans et al. , 2018 would possibly not remember that the YouTube content they are viewing is, essentially, an advertisement.
However, despite their expanding incidence and significance in children’s business media atmosphere, analysis on how influencer marketing impacts young kids remains to be limited for an exception, see De Jans et al. , 2019. Most of the studies on influencer advertising and marketing focus on an adult audience and view how influencers affect the acquire decisions of their fans e. g. , De Veirman et al. , 2017; Lou and Yuan, 2019; Schouten et al.
, 2019. Therefore, this paper aims to theoretically outlay how social media influencers, as a new source in promoting, target and affect young children. Children have always been a significant target group for marketers, both because of their impact on their folks’ buying decisions, but in addition as future adult clients Calvert, 2018. We focus on children under age 12 as they’re highly prone to advertising. Their promoting literacy, all knowledge and skills related to advertising, is not yet fully developed Hudders et al. , 2017.
The cognitive talents, emotion legislation, and moral advancement are still immature for children under 12 John, 1999; Rozendaal et al. , 2011; Hudders et al. , 2017. These advantage help them to realize the persuasive intent of advertising and methods used to convince them, manage the feelings that commercials may arouse, and evaluate the equity and appropriateness of promoting e. g. , use of stereotypes.
A strongly developed promoting literacy is indispensable to be in a position to seriously mirror on advertising and avoid subconscious persuasion Hudders et al. , 2017. Not surprisingly, a number of research have shown that kids under 12 have problems to cope with embedded advertising e. g. , Hudders et al.
, 2016; De Pauw et al. , 2018a,b. Accordingly, express corporate movements and self policies apply for children under 12 so that you can protect them from advertising influence. For example, a number of European food brands agreed not to promote bad food merchandise to kids under 12 in the EU Pledge2 agreement as they are conscious about children’s high susceptibility for their advertising messages. Since 2019, influencer advertising and marketing has been included in this contract.
The intention of this review is threefold. First, the research aims to provide insights into the significance of social media influencers as a source in promoting concentrated on kids. In order to adopt a theoretical approach to children’s processing of influencer advertising and marketing, we draw upon existing theoretical and empirical work referring to source effects in persuasion. During formative years, kids stumble upon different promoting sources shaping their tastes and preferences, looking to turn them into brand loyalists as they grow older. Social media influencers can be perceived as a new type of real life endorser affecting kids’s and their parents’ consumption conduct. Second, this paper adds a review of the present limited academic analysis on influencer advertising and marketing focused at children.
Additionally, societal and policy implications of this tactic in the context of prior analysis are mentioned. Third, a future research agenda which will foster tutorial analysis on the topic is included. This way, we are hoping our review may offer a basis for advertising connected law, policies, and parent intervention strategies and thus help ensure the coverage of kids. The importance of the source as sender of the object of information has been well recognized in the verbal exchange and promoting literature. Already in 1948, Laswell emphasized that each communication includes a message, a medium, a recipient, and a source Lasswell, 1948.
In promoting, a contrast can be made between the person who bears financial and obligation for the message and the person who communicates the emblem’s message Stern, 1994. As such, in the latter sense, brands may create or license a character or pay an endorser or spokesperson to have an impact on clients’ attitudes and acquire intentions. The persuasiveness of promoting is strongly influenced by purchasers’ perception of those assets see Wilson and Sherrell, 1993 for a meta analysis. For instance, source credibility plays a important role in how clientele evaluate brands and items, whereby a good evaluation of the credibility of the source is probably going to translate into certain advertising outcomes Sternthal et al. , 1978; Ohanian, 1991. Source credibility incorporates two dimensions: trustworthiness and experience.
Trustworthiness refers to the honesty, believability, and morality of the endorser, while expertise refers back to the endorser’s competence, data, and abilities Hovland et al. , 1953; Sternthal et al. , 1978; Erdogan, 1999; Flanagin and Metzger, 2007. Both trustworthiness and experience were found to beautify promoting effectiveness Amos et al. , 2008. Furthermore, the physical look or elegance of the source plays an enormous role in the endorsers’ credibility and, consequently, persuasiveness Kahle and Homer, 1985; Kamins, 1989; McCracken, 1989; Ohanian, 1991.
Even among children, using attractive peer models has been shown to augment advertising effectiveness e. g. , Van de Sompel and Vermeir, 2016. Source elegance is driven by elements such as perceived similarity, familiarity, and likeability of the source. Familiarity refers back to the extent to which one knows the source through publicity; likability is outlined as affection for the source as a result of the source’s physical appearance and behaviour, while similarity is the intended resemblance between the source and receiver of the message McGuire, 1985. According to McGuire 1985, assets who are known to, liked by, and/ or comparable to the client are found to be wonderful and, as a result, are persuasive.
Moreover, these source factors contribute to purchasers’ id with the source, which raises the probability they will adopt their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors Kelman, 1961; Basil, 1996. When clientele identify with the source, they will likely imitate his/her conduct, including the products he/she uses Kelman, 1961, often known as social learning Bandura et al. , 1961. Indeed, as assets in promoting on the whole show the usefulness of the product they endorse and the way to use it, this action may lead to observational learning and modeling of their conduct accordingly Bandura et al. , 1966. Moreover, next to family and chums, sources utilized in promoting may function role models they refer to of their identification formation Lloyd, 2002; Hoffner and Buchanan, 2005.
As a result, when advertising assets are paired with products, the certain affective responses toward those resources may transfer onto the items Acuff and Reiher, 1999; McNeal, 2007; de Droog et al. , 2012, which has been called a which means transfer McCracken, 1989. Importantly, essential to the effectiveness of endorsement advertising is an effective fit between the source and the product he/she endorses, which has been known as the match up speculation in celeb analysis Kamins, 1990. To finish, the probability of the former system to occur increases when purchasers develop a parasocial dating parasocial interaction; PSI with the source Tsay Vogel and Schwartz, 2014. PSI, as introduced by Horton and Wohl 1956, refers back to the relationships purchasers develop with media characters, making them crucial resources of information Rubin et al.
, 1985. Accordingly, when shoppers determine with a source and their brand usage conduct, they’ll likely adopt this conduct Naderer et al. , 2018. As the need for companionship, that’s the main driver for courting formation, emerges in early life Hoffner, 2008, children usually engage in the formation of PSI’s de Droog et al. , 2012.
Brands often display anthropomorphized or fable characters in their advertising and on their product packaging. These sketch like figures can be created by the brand with the only aim of selling their merchandise and features i. e. , brand mascots, brand icons, and non movie star spokes characters. Famous examples of brand name mascots are Tony the Tiger Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal, Chester Cheetah Frito Lay’s Cheetos, Ronald McDonald McDonalds, and Mr. Peanut Planters.
These characters are in full possession of the logo, which implies a very high level of handle over the source and its message. However, as it takes a lot of development and advertising efforts to build recognition and affinity for these characters, brands may also opt to license a personality from media agencies Kraak and Story, 2015. Examples of licensed characters that are used by brands are a large number of. For example, Spongebob Squarepants endorses Yoplait GoGurt and Disney’s Cars figures endorse Hot Wheels toys. McDonalds approved different characters over the years to endorse their happy meals e.
g. , The Incredibles, My Little Pony, and Transformers Cyberverse. Spider Man endorses everything from Pop Tarts to Cheez it crackers to Fruit Snacks to Fudge Stripe cookies for more examples, see licenseglobal. com. Contractual agreements allow them to use the characters for merchandizing and cross promotions Kraak and Story, 2015; Smits et al.
, 2015. As a result, popular media characters are highly present in children’s daily lives, not only through television and other media, but also via merchandising e. g. , books, toys, and clothes featuring characters; Atkinson et al. , 2015 and on product packages and in promoting.
Brands take advantage of these characters’ fame and recognition among kids. For instance, in the fourth quarter of 2018, U. S. clients spent approximately 21. 6 billion dollars on approved item items for kids O’Connell, 2019. Apart from the undeniable fact that they’re positive advertising assets, brand and certified characters hold the benefit that, since they’re “fictional” and hence more “controllable”, they are less likely to be embroiled in a scandal as in comparison to real life endorsers, which can negatively affect the logo image as poor associations people make with a celeb can be transferred to the emblem e.
g. , Till and Shimp, 1998; Stafford et al. , 2002. Furthermore, these characters do not age or change much over the years, which makes their employability less timely as in comparison to human endorsers. Research on the use of brand mascots and licensed characters on children’s attitudes and behaviors has mainly focused on food with findings suggesting that the presence of cartoon media characters positively influences kids’s food options, decisions, and intake, particularly for energy dense and nutrient poor foods as in comparison to fruits or vegetables see Kraak and Story, 2015 for a review. The presence of name mascots and certified characters draws kids’s consciousness Ogle et al.
, 2017, helps them recognize and recall the merchandise and types they endorse, and has been found effective in convalescing attitudes about the advertised product e. g. , Neeley and Schumann, 2004; Lapierre et al. , 2011 and extending product choice e. g. , Nelson et al.
, 2015. There are distinct purposes why these forms of assets are stunning for kids. First, these simply drawn, colorful and funny characters appeal to them and are easy to bear in mind, that is helpful given the restricted cognitive talents of young kids de Droog et al. , 2011; Lapierre et al. , 2011.
Second, children easily form parasocial relationships with these likeable and fun characters de Droog et al. , 2012, that may result in a option for the products they endorse Lagomarsino and Suggs, 2018. Moreover, as these characters are actually finding their way onto social media e. g. , Chester Cheetah has 191k followers on Instagram, the perceived distance among child customers and their favorite characters is decreased, which may even augment feelings of parasocial interplay.
Third, the pairing of brands with popular cartoon media characters is not only restricted to packaging and standard advertising, but also takes on more built-in forms. For example, likeable characters may engage with and eat branded merchandise in kids’s movies Naderer et al. , 2018, 2019, or brands may be built-in in highly interactive and interesting advergames featuring likeable or even customizable avatars Bailey et al. , 2009. As these placements are embedded in the media content, children may adventure extra difficulties recognizing the persuasive intent of these placements see De Jans et al. , 2019c for an summary.
Next to highly attractive and fun characters, real life endorsers are also frequently used to mold kids’s intake. For instance, brands may tie child celebrities to their merchandise and use them as endorsers. Children search for to those publicly recognized figures who may function role models to them Read, 2011; Power and Smith, 2017. Brands aim for a picture transfer, hoping that sure associations attached to celebrities will move to the brands those celebrities endorse McCracken, 1989, and children will want to determine with them as they aspire to be like the superstar Kamins et al. , 1989.
Celebrity endorsement as an promoting technique has been widely researched among adult populations see Knoll and Matthes, 2017 for a review, but has also been found a valuable strategy to target children as it may impact their attitudes, possibilities, and behaviors e. g. , Ross et al. , 1984; Jain et al. , 2011. Research on the impact of celeb endorsement on kids has mainly focused on food advertising and has found that celebrities and athletes who are common among minors customarily endorse energy dense and nutrient poor merchandise e.
g. , Bragg et al. , 2013, 2016, that might augment children’s intake of these less healthy foods e. g. , Boyland et al. , 2013; Dixon et al.
, 2014. On the other hand, regardless of their presumed lower promoting literacy, children do have a reasonably good knowing of superstar endorsement, which they grow at an earlier age in comparison to their understanding of different advertising methods Rozendaal et al. , 2011. As a substitute for using celebrities as endorsers, promoting aimed at children customarily gifts unknown actors and models interacting with or consuming branded items. 2%, while commercials with celeb endorsers accounted for 7.
, 2019. Next to adults, these actors customarily appear as “consistent” children and youths with whom their young viewers can easily determine. Accordingly, the aim of these ads is to evoke peer modeling or social studying, which means that kids will copy the peer’s behavior, adding their consumption styles Bandura, 2002. Indeed, gaining peer attractiveness and approval is crucial to children Mangleburg et al. , 2004; Devlin et al.
, 2007. Particularly from the age of 6–7 years, peers become crucial agents for client socialization and youngsters start modeling peers’ conduct John, 1999. Even pre school kids’s behaviors and intake may already be influenced by their friends Ahn and Nelson, 2015; Atkinson et al. , 2015. This has shown to be especially positive when the peer is of a similar age or a little older than themselves Brody and Stoneman, 1981.
Moreover, children usually tend to engage in peer modeling, when the peer’s conduct is being rewarded, which is generally the case in advertising Flanders, 1968. For example, a content material evaluation of food advertising focused at kids found that these kids are usually depicted as happy, twiddling with chums and enjoying the foods supplied to them, thus conveying the oblique message that children might be happier once they eat these foods Hebden et al. , 2011. The proliferation of social community sites has multiplied the reach of word of mouth and amplified the impact of peer recommendations, that may now be shared one to many Lyons and Henderson, 2005; Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Knoll, 2016. Children today are audiences and creators of media. Children can easily generate digital word of mouth eWOM themselves, which raises the emblem’s visibility and awareness and has been shown to absolutely affect children’s items’ sales Bao et al.
, 2019. For example, kids are able to share online experiences e. g. , Amazon enables kids under 13 to upload their own studies which are marked as “A kid’s review”, engage with brands on social media e. g. , despite the age limit of 13 years, children can easily create a Facebook or Instagram account with false data, and create and share their very own videos, including appearing their ownership of and experiences with items e.
g. , YouTube Kids allow children under 13 to create an own account. As peers are believed to have no business attention, they’re perceived as genuine and credible resources of data. As a result, children and their folks may be less resistant toward their endorsements compared to brand originated advertising and marketing conversation and assets de Vries et al. , 2012; van Noort et al.
, 2012. Accordingly, brands aim to encourage and reward eWOM e. g. , free gift in return for a review or online sign in, like and share contests, resulting in minor customers fitting promoting assets instead of merely targets Chu and Kim, 2011. However, the high credibility and impact of these real world endorsers may be offset by their uncontrollability Yang, 2017. Recognizing the impact of eWOM on clients’ attitudes and decisions, brands have began drawing near social media influencers i.
e. , influential social media users who controlled to build a large audience of fans or subscribers, and incentivizing them to create and distribute relevant, authentic browsing brand related content material, a convention that is called influencer marketing De Veirman et al. , 2017. This way, brands may leverage the flexibility of word of mouth while re gaining manage as reliable agreements among brands and the influencers are made. Influencers will likely be certain as they need to remain loyal toward the brands they acquire incentives from De Veirman et al.
, 2019. Social influencers do not only attract minors’ recognition, the child audiences also aspire to become influencers themselves Chambers et al. , 2018. Some children indeed controlled to construct a massive viewers of fans or subscribers on their media channels, which are often run by their parents Novacic, 2019. They mostly hold multiple social media bills, with Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube as essentially the most important ones on which they post interesting and provoking content material De Veirman et al. , 2019.
There are even a number of very young child influencers or “kidfluencers,” who post a range of videos on YouTube, adding toy reviews, fun challenges and tutorials , or who maintain a a success Instagram channel . Different than, for instance, child actors, the influencer does not faux to play and feature fun with toys, he/she really does, increasing their relatability to the audience and blurring any persuasive or selling intent. As a high variety of fans and likes are more likely to result in a wide reach of the industrial message, these remain key metrics for brands, influencer businesses, and platforms aiming to identify and choose acceptable influencers for their campaigns. This alas also contributes to malicious practices of influencers buying fake followers and likes, for instance, through bots and clickfarms, to artificially inflate their perceived influencer status. On the only hand, this could lead on to disappointing results for brands as their influencer marketing campaigns do not obtain goals. On the other hand, when the general public finds out their favourite influencer bought fake fans and likes, they are going to bring to mind him/her as a fraud, resulting in negative reactions and unfollowing De Veirman et al.
, 2017. Moreover, influencers risk punishment, as an example, by the FTC who has the authority to bring enforcement actions in opposition t misleading or unfair marketing practices Section 5 of the FTC Act. Recently October 2019, the FTC halted deceptive online affiliate marketing practices associated with influencer advertising. The regulatory body showed facts of a corporation Devumi that sold fake debts and signs of social engagement and have an impact on to a variety of influencers. Specifically, the FTC criticism suggests that the company: “Devumi filled more than 58,000 orders for fake Twitter followers, allowing the buyers to deceive capability clients about their social media impact. The complaint cites over 4,000 sales of faux YouTube subscribers and over 32,000 sales of fake YouTube views.
” Fair, 2019b. The option to buy fake fans and likes through a single click is specially being concerned when it involves minors, both due to economic burden and the legal consequences they risk. Similar to traditional celebrities, influencers with numerous fans on one or more platforms e. g. , so called macro influencers have among 100,000 and 1 million fans; Ismail, 2018 have a large reach; but it surely, the origin of their fame and nature of their have an effect on is different.
While traditional celebrities gained public recognition due to their terrific beauty e. g. , supermodels or talent e. g. , actors and athletes, social media influencers branded themselves on social media through posting highly appealing self generated content material, either on a particular topic in which they gift themselves as knowledgeable e.
g. , food, beauty…, or more commonly, showcasing their lifestyles as a whole Khamis et al. , 2017; De Jans et al. , 2019. Children merely watch influencers’ videos for leisure purposes. However, the content material can also become informative for children’s consumption judgements as the influencers often allow them to know which brands they like and dislike and overtly reveal these brands in their videos Martínez and Olsson, 2019.
Different than traditional celebrities, who are these days also present on social media and expanded their fame online, social media influencers have built their fame on social media, without being known to the general public ahead De Veirman et al. , 2017; Schouten et al. , 2019. A contrast can be made among various types of influencers, dependent on their variety of fans. As such, social media influencers may start off with a small viewers of engaged fans less than 1,000 with whom they’ve a real life courting, leading to high perceptions of authenticity. As they profile themselves as opinion leader in a specific niche, leading to a growing audience, they are known as micro influencers 1,000–100,000 followers.
Some influencers even be capable of build very large audiences a million–1 million followers on social media and gain movie star status Ismail, 2018; Alassani and Göretz, 2019. Children lookup to child influencers, but at an analogous time, they accept as true with they’re highly akin to them as they share an identical pursuits and actions and that they look like ordinary children similar to them van Dam and van Reijmersdal, 2019. Despite their online movie star status, influencers tend to be perceived as very relatable and approachable, as a result of highly personal content material they post and the interactions they have got with their followers. Their social media posts provide their followers a glimpse into their own lives, leading to perceptions that they’ve a lot in common with the influencer and he/she is a peer Abidin, 2015; Gannon and Prothero, 2018; Schouten et al. , 2019.
Therefore, kids are likely to build a dating with their favorite influencers, that may be called parasocial interplay cfr. supra, which implies that they become influential resources of information and inspiration that may impact intake linked judgements Rubin et al. , 1985; De Jans et al. , 2019. Lee and Watkins 2016 for example showed that coming up parasocial relationships with a vlogger may positively affect brand perceptions, and De Jans et al.
2019 found it to be certainly related with purchase intentions. Moreover, as influencers show the usefulness of the products they endorse, children may learn and model their conduct Akers et al. , 1979; Lagomarsino and Suggs, 2018, which has been referred to as peer modeling or social studying, which can be particularly advantageous for persuasion when the baby likes or admires the model Bandura, 1977. For example, Ryan of Ryan’s World, today’s preferable child influencer with 21 million subscribers to the YouTube channel, shows his daily exercises, adding the type of cereal he eats, the toys he plays with, and the places he goes to in his vlogs. Accordingly, it is probably going that children will understand child influencers resembling Ryan as peers, who are a significant source of influence in their customer socialization process Bachmann et al.
, 1993. As a result, kids is very willing to determine with common child influencers and take on their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, adding those related to brands and items Kelman, 2006; Pilgrim and Bohnet Joschko, 2019; Schouten et al. , 2019. Influencers are getting an important asset for advertisers, as they directly address their target audience and come with brand and product instructions in highly applicable and unique content material. The follow of “influencer marketing” refers to advertisers closing deals with influencers, which entail promotion in trade for fee, free products or invites to unique events De Veirman et al.
, 2017. Doing so, advertisers wish to create a meaning transfer Russell, 1998 and reach their target viewers in an authentic way. Influencers primarily hold a whole lot of creative freedom in content introduction, as they know their audience best. They incorporate branded content in studies, instructional materials, and tutorials in real life settings, which increases their trustworthiness as they’ve tried the products themselves and promote them in an genuine manner Uzunoglu and Kip, 2014; Schouten et al. , 2019. Influencers’ so called sponsored posts or videos mimic and blend with biological content material in users’ feeds without traumatic their mindless scrolling of social media Abidin, 2016; Wojdynski and Evans, 2016; De Veirman et al.
, 2017. Accordingly, the observe of influencer advertising can be regarded a kind of native advertising, outlined as “any paid promoting that takes the express form and look of editorial content material from the publisher itself” Wojdynski and Evans, 2016. Moreover, even though today there are clear checklist and regulations on disclosing backed content material, influencers are hesitant to transparently expose the business nature of their posts, either because they are not acutely aware of the rules or as a result of they are looking to avoid irritation among their followers De Veirman et al. , 2019. Therefore, children may fail to determine influencer content material as advertising and focus on such persuasion strategies seriously Friestad and Wright, 1994; De Veirman et al.
, 2019. As a result, as an alternative of advertising, influencers’ brand initiated endorsements are likely to be perceived as highly credible digital word of mouth the influencer shares out of real liking of the brand Phelps et al. , 2004; Cheung et al. , 2009. Moreover, because of the correspondence bias, people and youngsters in specific tend to believe that however the influencer was compensated for endorsing a brand, he/she does not do this if he/she doesn’t truly just like the brand. This bias is the tendency to agree with that someone’s behavior is a true reflection of their true underlying tendencies when essentially, their behavior could be defined by situational factors, i.
e. , the influencer was compensated by the brand Gilbert and Malone, 1995; O’Sullivan, 2003. Interviews with teenage influencers recently discovered that they indeed only are looking to endorse brands they fully support; however it, when disenchanted with a received product, a quandary between being truthful toward their followers and being loyal to the logo arises De Veirman et al. , 2019. Children are extra inclined when it comes to this type of native advertising, as their promoting literacy is not fully constructed yet. Advertising literacy refers to a person’s information of and abilities associated with promoting i.
e. , dispositional promoting literacy and to their potential to identify and significantly consider it i. e. , situational advertising literacy Friestad and Wright, 1994; Hudders et al. , 2017.
The embedded nature of influencer marketing lowers both kids’s ability and motivation to recognize it as advertising and significantly replicate on it Nairn and Fine, 2008. Their means is lowered as influencers’ subsidized posts and videos appear among non subsidized content of their feeds, which ends up in the simultaneous publicity of editorial and business messages. This content overload makes it hard for kids to focus their recognition and determine applicable from beside the point information, resulting in a depletion of self regulatory materials and problems to seriously replicate on commercial messages. Second, their motivation is reduced as the industrial messages are built-in in fun and engaging posts and videos Hudders et al. , 2017.
Remarkably, influencers’ videos are available on YouTube Kids e. g. , Ryan’s World, today’s ultimate child influencer channel, which parents perceive as a safe media environment. Indeed, while YouTube states that the restricted ads on YouTube Kids go through a rigorous review procedure for compliance with their policies YouTube, 2019a, these covert advertising practices slip during the net. A literature search was done using a “title abstract keywords” search in the Scopus database using the keywords influencer OR blog OR vlog OR microcelebrit OR unboxing AND child OR kid OR minor OR youth AND advertising and marketing OR advertis OR commercial to get an insight into the literature that specifically makes a speciality of social media influencers as an advertising source targeting kids. At the time of our research August 2019, this search manner yielded 55 academic articles.
The papers were screened to exclude those not relevant to the restricted analysis review. Papers were only included if they met here predefined criteria: 1 only peer reviewed articles, 2 articles examining children up to 12 years old, and 3 articles posted in English. All articles were inspected by studying titles and abstracts to decide in the event that they met the proposed standards. After screening, seven educational articles that matched our standards were found. However, we also determined to include one article Evans et al.
, 2018, which tested young children’s folks, as opposed to kids without delay. Furthermore, we checked the lists of “latest articles” of 25 SSCI ranked journals from the domain names of verbal exchange, media, marketing, and promoting, including two journals that specifically center around children see Table 1. No additional articles that comply with the inclusion standards were detected. Below, we shall briefly discuss the eight included articles. Given the small sample, we quickly summarize each of the articles below after which we compare and synthesize what is famous about influencers and children during this nascent body of literature.
Eight empirical studies examined the apply of influencer marketing among a young audience see Table 2. One study reports the results of a content evaluation of branded vlogs and 3 studies one survey study, one focus group study, and one ethnographic study focused on how children consider this subsidized vlogging. Three studies experimentally examined the effectiveness of sponsored vlogging, with two studies focusing on its effect on kids’s food intake and one study specializing in the effect of an academic vlog on children’s susceptibility to vlog promoting. To finish, one study tested how folks take care of backed vlogs. Remarkably, all research focus on YouTube as the main channel for influencer advertising. Below, we discuss the research in additional detail.
One study achieved a quantitative content evaluation of branded vlogs. Nicoll and Nansen 2018 tested the content material of 100 recent toy unboxing videos. They collected the videos by applying the “newest” filter to the quest term “toy unboxing” and analyzed the 1st 50 effects on 2 days. They made a evaluation between the vlogs of children 53% and adults 47% and analyzed variations of experience, professionalism, and promotion around the vlogs. The age of the baby unboxers ranged from boy or girl 2–4 years; 9% to adolescent 12–18 years; 5%, with the general public 39% being primary school age 4–11 years. Concerning their gender, 36% of endorsers were female and 52% male, while gender was undecided in 11% of the videos e.
g. , only hands were visible, no commentary. Boys mostly unboxed and assembled toy cars and Legos, whereas girls tended to unbox toys like Shopkins tiny collectable toys. Their main end was that the toy unboxing videos of children tended to be a lot more varied and used more each day language in comparison to expert e. g.
, EvanTubeHD or adult’s videos, yet they seek to imitate adult and professional videos, including their manufacturing and branding suggestions. On any other hand, trendy professional channels try to produce a semblance of beginner authenticity by imitating the playful qualities of children’s videos Nicoll and Nansen, 2018. Martínez and Olsson 2019 carried out a focus group study to test how the practice of backed vlogging is perceived among 9 and 12 year old Swedish children where 12 focus groups with 46 kids were carried out. Participants were shown a video make up instructional of the popular YouTuber Misslisibell as an illustrative instance of promoting in vlogs. They had normative discussions around her vlogging practices and YouTube celebrity status associated with her young age and had a variety of interpretations of the video as advertising. The study shows the importance of YouTubers to children of their building of identification and as a role model that guides their intake Martínez and Olsson, 2019.
The study of Folkvord et al. 2019 is an exploratory survey study among pre teens/teens 10–13 years by which they examined the period of time children spend on viewing vlogs, their recognition and knowing of the endorsed brand in vlogs and their self perceived susceptibility to the ability persuasive consequences of these vlogs. Their conclusion was that most people of children commonly watch vlogs and that their degree of bonding with the vlogger predicted the time they spend on observing vlogs. Moreover, they might easily recall merchandise and brands displayed in the vlogs mostly food and drinks and believed that they themselves and others were plagued by endorsements in vlogs. Three experimental studies examined how children are affected by subsidized vlogs and one study focused on how fogeys of children among the ages of four and 11 react to subsidized vlogs.
First, two research tested the impact of social media influencer advertising on kids’s food intake Coates et al. , 2019a,b. The first study is a randomized trial with a among topics design during which 176 children 9–11 years were uncovered to mock Instagram profiles of two popular vloggers, either selling fit or dangerous snacks. Results showed that influencer marketing of unhealthy foods elevated children’s immediate food intake, whereas the equivalent marketing of healthy foods had no effect. In their second study, an advertising disclosure was included to alert kids on the inclusion of advertising.
In a between topics design, 151 kids 9–11 years were exposed to popular YouTubers’ vlogs adding a non food product, or an unhealthy snack with or without an promoting disclosure. Participants’ intake of the marketed snack and an alternate brand of an identical snack were measured. In line with their first study, influencer advertising and marketing elevated children’s immediate intake of the promoted snack relative to an alternative non food brand control condition. Remarkably, the inclusion of an promoting disclosure elevated the effect, as children who viewed food advertising with a disclosure and never those without fed on 41% more of the promoted snack compared to the manage group. The study of De Jans et al. 2019 tested how an educational vlog can help kids 11–14 years cope with promoting.
The effects show that an promoting disclosure elevated their awareness of advertising and their affective promoting literacy for sponsored vlogs, and that only affective promoting literacy negatively affected influencer trustworthiness and PSI and acquire intention accordingly. Moreover, when young adolescents were informed about advertising via an informational vlog i. e. , peer based promoting literacy intervention, sure consequences on the influencer and subsequently on promoting effects were found of an advertising disclosure. Evans et al. 2018 tested how parents of young children take care of backed vlogging on YouTube.
They gauged folks’ knowing of and responses to subsidized child influencer unboxing videos. Through an experimental design among 418 fogeys, they assessed the impact of sponsorship text disclosure gift or absent and sponsor pre roll sponsor pre roll, nonsponsor pre roll, and no pre roll for a toy on conceptual persuasion knowledge, perceptions of sponsorship transparency, and various effect measures. Moreover, they explored how parental mediation influences the results. They found that sponsor variations in pre roll advertising sponsor versus nonsponsor versus none and sponsor text disclosure gift versus absent situations didn’t affect folks’ conceptual persuasion knowledge of the unboxing video. However, if a sponsor pre roll ad was included, parents suggested higher levels of sponsorship transparency of the unboxing video compared to fogeys who saw no pre roll ad or a nonsponsor pre roll ad.
There was no extra effect on sponsorship transparency or conceptual persuasion information when a sponsor text disclosure was included. Moreover, high levels of parental mediation conditionally impacted the indirect effect of a sponsor pre roll advertisement via sponsorship transparency on perceptions of the unboxing video and attitudes toward the sponsor. Four observations can be made based in this thorough review of educational literature. First, all of the included articles center around YouTube as a platform, which is not surprising as it is frequently used among kids Pew Research Center, 2018; Ofcom, 2019. Only one study Coates et al. , 2019a used mock Instagram profiles in a randomized trial; nevertheless it, these profiles represented common YouTubers among kids.
No studies yet concentrated on TikTok, a social media platform which has become very popular among young children. Second, all of the above research aside from one were conducted among teens with ages between 9 and 14 years old. Only one study Marsh, 2016 concentrated on preschool children 4 year old kids and no studies yet focused on kids between 6 and 8 years when examining influencer advertising. Third, most articles take a consumer perspective and consider influencer practices and the way minors perceive the persuasion tactic, while especially specializing in persuasive content material and perceptions of transparency, adding using advertising disclosures, using different strategies. Only one study carried out a content evaluation of child influencers’ vlogs Nicoll and Nansen, 2018. A final minor remark is the center around dangerous food items Coates et al.
, 2019a,b, drinks De Jans et al. , 2019, and toys Evans et al. , 2018 in the experimental studies gauging for influencer advertising consequences on children. A variety of societal and policy implications arise from the findings of prior research mentioned above. More especially, they may be crucial for policy aimed toward overlaying children’s interests.
Most prior research concentrated on children’s exposure to and belief of influencer advertising and marketing. The above studies show that kids spend plenty of time gazing videos of their favourite influencers, wherein additionally they come across influencer advertising and marketing practices e. g. , Marsh, 2016; Folkvord et al. , 2019; Martínez and Olsson, 2019.
Moreover, they also are influenced by the content material these influencers post and liable to the business messages incorporated in it e. g. , Folkvord et al. , 2019; Martínez and Olsson, 2019, specifically those on bad foods and beverages e. g.
, De Jans et al. , 2019; Coates et al. , 2019a,b. Considering kids’s susceptibility to influencer marketing practices, the findings of the above discussed prior research help the significance of existing checklist and guidelines stressing the fact that advertising will be recognizable as such, in certain for minor audiences. Two studies De Jans et al.
, 2019; Coates et al. , 2019b tested the impact of an advertising disclosure on minors’ awareness of and susceptibility to influencer advertising and marketing. While both studies have shown that the inclusion of an promoting disclosure helps kids recognize promoting, the study of Coates et al. 2019b found that this elevated awareness really increased the effectiveness of influencer marketing, leading to a more robust intake of the promoted snack. Moreover, De Jans et al. 2019 found that the inclusion of an promoting disclosure may have sure consequences on the influencer and subsequently on promoting effectiveness when minors were informed about promoting through an advertising literacy intervention in the format of an informational vlog.
These research suggest that a disclosure indeed helps children determine influencer advertising practices as promoting and thus protects kids from subconscious persuasion, with out essentially having a negative impact on the influencer and advertising effectiveness. In addition, Evans et al. 2018 found that sponsorship transparency in child directed content is also preferred by fogeys and has a favorable effect on fogeys’ perceptions of unboxing videos, attitude toward the logo, and perspective toward the sponsor. While makes an attempt were made, for example in the EU EASA and the US FTC, to formulate clear guidelines on the disclosure of influencer advertising, to date a global, coordinated method is missing De Jans et al. , 2019. As a result of a majority of these well intended regulatory makes an attempt, today there’s a plethora of disclosures and wordings moreover in various languages declaring the presence of a cloth connection among the influencer and the logo.
Moreover, these guidelines do not mention anything about kids, neither as a target audience, nor as a source i. e. , child influencers. In the EU, in 2018 the European Advertising Standards Alliance EASA, Europe’s co ordination point for best apply in the implementation of self law, has introduced its Best Practice Recommendation on Influencer Marketing3, as a point of reference for countrywide tips by self regulatory agencies SROs. EASA states that, “subject to local parameters, SROs may vary in their countrywide practices and judge to transcend what is suggested during this doc to ensure that influencer advertising and marketing abides by the countrywide promoting codes and is honest, decent and honest and might be thus depended on by consumers” EASA, 2018.
Thus, these overarching European guidelines leave loads of room for interpretation and implementation. In the US, the FTC provides detailed endorsement guides to teach influencers and advertisers on what forms of endorsements constitute advertising and where and the way disclosures should be made to comply with Truth in Advertising laws in america The FTC Endorsement Guides4. These Guides do not offer any specific information regarding children. However, using influencers within online platforms – akin to on YouTube – necessitates extra checklist for focused on kids. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA,5 enacted in 1998 to protect children under the age of 13, “prohibits unfair or misleading acts or practices in connection with the collection, use, and/or disclosure of private information from and about kids on the Internet” Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 2019. Unboxing videos and child influencer channels on YouTube symbolize one such site where young kids are the viewers.
Recently, Google/YouTube was accused of violating COPPA by the FTC and the State of New York for collecting personal data i. e. , using own identifiers or cookies without parental consent after which delivering focused promoting to the kids, on occasion for items viewed in the video content i. e. , an advertisement for toys was served before the video that featured unboxing of toys; Min, 2019.
Google was both claiming to toy brands reminiscent of Hasbro that their content attracted young audiences and likewise claiming for regulatory functions that it didn’t have audiences under 13 so they don’t need to worry about COPPA. In the tip, Google agreed to pay a fine of $170 million and to change some of its guidelines and practices, including now assuming the viewers to these child targeted sites are children and halting the start of personalized ads there YouTube, 2019a. Further modifications may come with hiding “recognition metrics” akin to the number of likes on the YouTube videos, adding those of kid Influencers. The measures are expected to be in place by January 2020. Some of these movements will absolutely influence the apply and approval for the sites for advertisers.
Furthermore, however social media platforms come with the disclosure of influencer advertising in their guidelines, they do not strictly implement or control for proper disclosure. Instagram and Facebook have a branded content material tool and ask users to use it when content “elements or is influenced by a enterprise partner for an exchange of value” and tag the merchandise and types featured. However, it is questionable no matter if this tagging is enough to aid users determine content as advertising. Furthermore, they mention that the influencers themselves are guilty for complying with legal duties on disclosure of advertising Facebook, 2018. YouTube also offers a “paid promotion” function. However, including these words of their video takes some effort.
Influencers usually are not only check the “video consists of paid promotion” box in the sophisticated settings, they should also check the box “Help me inform viewers of paid promotion by adding a disclosure to this video. Additional disclosures for this video may be required under applicable laws” YouTube, 2019b. This way, they actually shift the accountability to review rules to the influencer, without implementing disclosure of their policy. Even YouTube Kids, YouTube’s recently introduced child pleasant platform, presently has no express rules on the correct disclosure of subsidized content material. They rather merely mention that commercials should “agree to applicable laws and policies including any relevant self regulatory or industry guidelines” YouTube, 2019c. Next to the coverage of teenage audiences, it should be noted that today influencers are often children themselves.
For instance, while the FTC stresses that influencers, “shouldn’t assume legal compliance is an individual else’s job” Fair, 2019a, it is unclear to what extent minor influencers are considered responsible for the content material they post, including the appropriate disclosure of backed content. Moreover, as folks or other adults equivalent to businesses or retailers gain from kids’s performances, policy makers should think about child influencers’ protection, too. For example, it is uncertain to what extent these children are protected by basic office concepts, similar to Child Labor Laws and the California Child Actor’s Bill, which guarantees that kids’s earnings remain their property. Specific regulations on child labor on social media are presently missing, while social media channels adding YouTube merely inform users about the existence of labor laws, without having a clear policy Wong, 2019. Furthermore, moral questions regarding these children’s privacy and possible psychological consequences of their online fame arise. Moreover, while YouTube and Instagram have an age limit of 13 years to conform to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act COPPA, these age restrictions are easy to circumvent, leading to children lying about their age and accounts created by their folks.
In addition, kids are sometimes featured and even used for influencer advertising applications of their folks’ social media outlets, similar to mommy blogs, which raises questions about no matter if children could be shielded from their fogeys publishing intimate or private details of their lives with out consent. First of all, content material evaluation could render insights into which content material strategies child influencers use on which platforms and how they mix different concepts and platforms. In addition, specific insights on sponsored content, including which form of brands and sectors they endorse, the branding suggestions they use, the ratio among sponsored and non backed posts and their use of advertising disclosures ad, subsidized may be helpful. Moreover, comments on backed posts could be analyzed e. g. , via sentiment analysis and supply insights into children’s’ appraisal and/or criticism toward these alternative content material options and the interactions among influencers and their fans.
Furthermore, social community evaluation could beautify our knowing of collaborations among influencers and types and connections between influencers. Which money owed do child influencers follow age, gender, nationality…, do they attach with other influencers and how do they engage with each other’s posts i. e. , likes, comments, views, shares…?Additionally, little is known about how various content strategies utilized by influencers can differentially affect kids. For instance, the prominence subtle vs. distinguished and modality visual vs.
auditory of a product placement can be a helpful aspect to check. Moreover, different strategies may be exuded on different social media platforms e. g. , TikTok vs. YouTube and likewise the type of brand or product known vs. unknown, low vs.
high involvement may impact influencer advertising outcomes. Furthermore, there are a couple of types of influencers – macro, micro, nano – that fluctuate along a number of traits adding number and types of fans Ismail, 2018; Alassani and Göretz, 2019. To what extent do various sorts of influencers reach child audiences and what are the ramifications for advertising effectiveness?For example, would nano influencers look more authentic and hence less like “slick promoting”?Future research could probe into various kinds of influencers as vital resources. Research may also look at various the traits of those sources. To what extent do brands and purchasers regard them as likeable, credible, and trustworthy?Does the strength of the parasocial interaction kids feel with these influencers affect their persuasiveness?As the shape and performance of influencers change, pupils could try to map out conceptual similarities or ameliorations in technique and outcomes of numerous sorts of influencers. In addition, the possible undesirable longer term outcomes of watching tons of of “unboxing” videos of toys and items may be assessed.
To what extent do these vloggers unintentionally contribute to materialism and affect children’s psychological health?To answer the above analysis questions, it can be appealing to perform observatory or participatory research to see how children deal with social media influencers’ content material in their everyday life. Experimental tactics can also be valuable, though questions concerning generalizability may arise. For instance, some pupils using an experimental strategy have created “fake” influencer content for stimuli of their research as a way to decorate inner validity Coates et al. , 2019a,b. While the research has uncovered some interesting findings, it is not known to what extent the findings are generalizable to real world influencers. Future research should work to enhance exterior validity as it is the very fame of the influencer that drives affect in the marketplace.
On the other hand, when using present content material as stimulus cloth, the question may rise whether findings would be the same when using different fabric from alternative influencers. Moreover, outcomes may differ dependent on how familiar members are with the influencer and how they understand him / her. Second, teaching children about non traditional advertising formats, including influencer marketing could help children deal with these persuasion strategies. This can be done in a college context through an advertising literacy training e. g.
, Hudders et al. , 2016; Nelson, 2016; De Jans et al. , 2017, which has shown to enhance children’s situational advertising literacy in some school districts in Belgium and the United States. However, there isn’t any elementary promoting literacy curriculum and it is complicated for interventions to be included in the school atmosphere given the other curricular requirements. Moreover, the implementation of such curriculum calls for express information and abilities from academics, who could have problems themselves in spotting new and embedded promoting formats. Therefore, they may wish to adjust or refine their very own promoting literacy first Boerman et al.
, 2017. In fact, children are mainly extrinsically stimulated to engage with traditional studying materials as they feel under force from school or fogeys. Therefore, alternatives reminiscent of informational vlogs e. g. , De Jans et al. , 2019a or educational games e.
g. , De Jans et al. , 2019b could be promising ways to include into didactic applications, as they do not take much time and might be used both at school or as a homework assignment on digital studying platforms. Moreover, as these formats are fun and entertaining, they’ll inspire kids intrinsically to find out about new persuasion tactics De Jans et al. , 2019b. Third, training folks and inspiring them to talk with their children may gift another way to instill promoting literacy.
However, analysis suggests that the children may be watching the YouTube videos by themselves and oldsters might not be aware of the business implications of these videos Evans et al. , 2018. Moreover, it is famous from literature on other embedded codecs e. g. , Hudders and Cauberghe, 2018 that parental mediation is not always helpful in assisting young children deal with advertising. How can parents be empowered to assist their children more significantly do something about influencer advertising?Research on these topics continues to be restricted.
Finally, however current self regulatory projects stress the importance of promoting being recognizable as such, especially when focused on children, a coordinated overseas approach on influencer advertising specifically, is non existent today. Whereas the Federal Trade Commission in america requires that influencers expose any sponsorship, the true enforcement of this ruling is uncertain in observe Federal Trade Commission, 2017. Also in the European Union, the regulatory framework leaves room for interpretation and implementation, which led to a plethora of checklist for disclosing backed content at a countrywide level De Jans et al. , 2019a. This ended in different types of disclosures used across influencers, platforms, and nations, that may be tricky given that the platforms transcend cultural borders and children may follow influencers from in all places the realm. Thus, the question arises to what extent kids recognize the which means of these various disclosures and even if they assist them to achieve advertising literacy and adorn coping skills.
Furthermore, the query may arise no matter if there might be an age limit, both on targeting minors through influencer advertising as on engaging in influencer marketing activities. Concerning the latter, whereas formal checklist to offer protection to child influencers are lacking e. g. , on labor situations and compensation influencers are regarded guilty for the content material they post and are expected to conform to influencer advertising guidelines concerning the disclosure of subsidized posts De Veirman et al. , 2019.
To conclude, both the apply of kid influencers carrying out paid partnerships, and the focused on of kids via influencer advertising and marketing raises ethical and legal worries. The present study aimed to situate and conceptualize social media influencers as a new type of advertising source targeting children. In short, influencers can be considered as highly common and admired peers. While looking at YouTube or scrolling through their social media apps, children are more and more uncovered to embedded promoting practices, rising in the unique content social media influencers post. Influencer marketing combines the merits of eWOM and movie star endorsement. Due to their perceived authenticity i.
e. , they have no commercial pursuits, the advertising messages they spread are perceived as highly credible word of mouth, as opposed to as promoting. On the other hand, children look up to popular influencers who’ve gained a certain superstar status and are willing to determine with them while taking on their lifestyles, attitudes and beliefs, including those on the items appearing of their social media retailers. Prior analysis has shown that kids indeed frequently encounter influencer marketing practices, foremost while watching YouTube e. g. , Marsh, 2016; Folkvord et al.
, 2019; Martínez and Olsson, 2019. The business content material these influencers post affects children’s attitudes and behaviors, for instance their snack intake e. g. , Folkvord et al. , 2019; Martínez and Olsson, 2019; Coates et al. , 2019a,b; De Jans et al.
, 2019a. Taking into account kids’s underdeveloped promoting literacy and consequently vulnerability to embedded promoting practices, comparable to influencer advertising, a little research has searched for ways to aid children recognize and do something about influencer advertising and marketing practices, for example in the course of the implementation of disclosures and advertising literacy interventions, equivalent to informational vlogs Coates et al. , 2019a,b; De Jans et al. , 2019a. These research offer initial facts that the implementation of a visual disclosure indeed helps children identify influencer advertising practices as advertising, while they don’t essentially negatively impact the influencer and advertising effectiveness. Moreover, transparency is also liked by fogeys and has a favorable effect on their perceptions and attitudes of both the format and the merchandise and types featured Evans et al.
, 2018. Furthermore, three major observations arise from the limited literature review that aimed to collect empirical insights on the persuasiveness of influencer advertising and marketing among children. First, analysis basically specializes in one certain platform, i. e. , YouTube, despite the popularity of other platforms among minors and influencers accordingly e. g.
, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Second, today, research on influencer advertising aimed toward kids is proscribed and mainly focusses on kids among 9 and 12, while more youthful and thus more susceptible kids are neglected. Third, most research takes a consumer viewpoint and examines how children perceive influencer advertising practices, while insights on the influencer point of view and the type of content material they post are missing. A future research agenda has been set out that makes a speciality of four capability research tracks: first, insights into influencers’ content material ideas and how they perceive their role in kids’s customer socialization. Second, the impact of influencer advertising on kids.
Third, how to empower children to handle influencer advertising and marketing, and fourth covering kids from influencer marketing through checklist and rules.
