No kidding, kids fall for witty ads with catchy jingles

Children are not star-struck, at least while watching advertisements. Witty ads with catchy jingles, not celebrities, hold children’s attention, finds a  study. The study says 33% of the children surveyed like an advertisement because of the product and not because of its glamour quotient.

The survey shows that contrary to popular belief, children like an ad for the quality of the product and not its face value.
A survey of 1,800 children across seven cities, including 400 from Mumbai, conducted by Edumedia as part of its Decoding Kids initiative, dispelled misconceptions that children are easily influenced, they blindly follow celebrities and they don’t know what they want.

The survey found that children today are savvy enough to know that the product is king, not celebrities.  Children prefer ads with a witty sense of humour and catchy jingles, found the survey. In Mumbai, 20.4% children said they like humorous advertisements and 13.9% like ads with catchy music. Nearly 21.4% judged the ad by its creativity and tagline and 31.9% liked the ads because they liked the product.

Though traditionally, marketers have been consistently roping in influential and powerful characters to lure audiences, GenNext is immune to such tricks, says Tabassum Modi, executive director of Edumedia.

Modi says the present generation of children prefer to make an informed choice rather than following a celebrity’s word of mouth. They would rather like a commercial that endorses good quality products than give in to any promises made by film stars.