Title: Socio-economic factors and impact of television advertising on children in the Middle East

Authors: Mohamed A. Nassar; Noor O. Abou Seido; Abdulaziz A. Al Zain

Addresses: College of Business Administration, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Block 5, Building 1, Mubarak Al-Abdullah Area, West Mishref, Kuwait ' Las Palmas Restaurant Company, Block 6, Street 4, Surra, Kuwait ' College of Business Administration, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Block 5, Building 1, Mubarak Al-Abdullah Area, West Mishref, Kuwait

Abstract: This paper investigates how socioeconomic factors in Middle Eastern families can affect the behaviour of children and family consumption patterns after watching television advertisement. It also explores how parents perceive children to be affected by advertising. We collected data via survey questionnaire from 294 parents of 12 different Middle Eastern nationalities living in Kuwait. All had children aged under 18 years old. The majority of children spent less than two hours per day watching TV on school days and more than three hours during holidays. Almost 40% of parents believed that TV advertising did not change the behaviour of their children. However, occupation, income, and ages of the first and fourth child were significantly and positively related to the impact of TV advertising on behaviour. Almost 58% of parents did not believe that their children could recognise that they were watching an advertisement.

Keywords: television advertising; tv adverts; behavioural change; socioeconomic factors; impact on children; Middle East; families; family consumption; consumption patterns; Kuwait; child behaviour; occupation; income; age.

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2015.072463

Middle East Journal of Management, 2015 Vol.2 No.3, pp.195 - 211

Received: 10 Dec 2014
Accepted: 08 Jan 2015

Published online: 14 Oct 2015 *

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