Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Young Consumers, Volume 11, Issue 1

Welcome to the first issue of Young Consumers for 2010. First, some news about the journal. You might know (I mentioned it in a previous editorial)that we are now abstracted by PsycINFO. We now know from the new Association of Business Schools ranking lists that Young Consumers has been included and ranked 1*, denoting a nationally (in the UK) recognised journal. Getting included is important since it is very likely that the new research assessment framework in the UK will use the ABS rankings in some way. So we are improving. Now let us turn to the content of this issue.

The lead article is by Natasja Oosterloo and her colleagues and continues our tradition of giving you research findings in the important area of lead user theory. We have already published papers in the field by Kunst and Kratzer in Vol. 8 (2007) and Molenmaker et al. in Vol. 9 (2008). Natasja from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands has extended the theory to social networks with young adults between 14 and 17 years of age. They have identified these young trend-setters and the results will contribute significantly to the already extensive literature on the subject as well as providing valuable insights for practitioners. Next we have a paper by Bahar Özdoan and Hakan Altintas from Baskent and Uludag Universities respectively in Turkey. They were interested in the effects of parent-adolescent co-viewing of TV and their discussions in the family to see how this affected those young people’s scepticism towards television advertising. Again this is an area in consumer socialisation where there are some findings, mainly in the USA, and this research takes into account the ecology of family viewing in Turkish culture to produce some interesting results. Staying with youth rather than children, Ian Phau and his colleagues from Curtin University of Technology in Australia have given us a paper with the intriguing title “Bend it like Beckham”which looks at how sports celebrities influence young adult consumers’purchase and behavioural intentions. Celebrity endorsement (and other techniques like character endorsement) is frequently used in marketing to young consumers and this paper makes an original contribution to the literature on endorsement by sporting heroes in a country where sport is a national pastime. In what must be a first for this journal (and many other journals I guess) we have a paper from Kazakhstan. Rajasekhara Potluri and colleagues from the Kazak-British University interviewed children and young people and their parents and provide us with useful information for marketers with an intriguing picture of consumption patterns by young people in that part of the world.

There are three papers dealing with food advertising. Sandra Jones and Amanda Reid both from the University of Wollongong in Australia have looked at the websites of food companies that are aimed at children or teenagers. They give us a unique snapshot of some internet marketing practices of Australian food companies and ethical issues for discussion are never far from one’s mind when reading this important paper. More research is needed on non-television forms of advertising and marketing to young people using platforms like the web. Kafia Ayadi and Joël Bree from Rouen Business School in France are involved in research within families looking at the transfer of learning about food between parents and children. There is a two-way traffic between both parties and Kafia describes what is happening here from her qualitative research. Food is an integral part of French culture and these observations shed light on the changing habits of one European society. Then we have a paper that examines another packaging of foods that interest children. Ike-Elechi Ogba and Rebecca Johnson from Northumbria University in the UK have used quantitative methods with parents, asking them about their perceptions of their children’s influence when they are grocery shopping, including the role of packaging. There is also a useful review and discussion of this neglected aspect of marketing to children.

Finally we have another article on advertising to children in different countries across the world. This time it is Israel and regular readers will appreciate another vision from another place of how we regulate broadcasting and promotion to young consumers.

I hope you all enjoy these papers and gain some useful insights from them. Let me also take this opportunity of wishing you a Happy New Year in 2010.

Dr Brian YoungEditor