Proactive and Reactive Active Advertising Mediation: A Longitudinal Test of Their Influence on Children’s Consumer Behavior

With 410 parents of children between 4 and 10 years old, this study tested the effects of the timing of active advertising mediation on parent-reported consumer behaviors by children (e.g. purchase requests and purchase-related conflicts) using an eight-month, two-wave longitudinal design. Contrary to expectations, results showed that parents’ engagement in proactive, preemptive active mediation did not have any protective effects against advertising effects on children; rather, when parents engaged in this mediational approach but did not engage in reactive active mediation, this led to more conflicts with children. In addition, the results also showed that the more children asked their parents consumer products at Wave 1, the more likely parents engaged in reactive active mediation (i.e. responding to their children’s consumer behavior by talking about advertising) at Wave 2. This article discusses the potential need for further investigations on the effectiveness of active mediation and policy-level help for families.