roles portrayed by children in South African magazine advertising

Abstract

This paper summarizes the findings of four studies executed from 1983 to 2003 todetermine how marketers in South Africa portray children in magazine advertisements.This longitudinal study reports on aspects such as the incidence of child models in theadvertisements, the roles they depict and whether there are differences as to the wayin which marketers use children from different races in the same advertisements. Aconceptual framework or marketing communications model is presented to illustratehow marketers can use the child as a substitute communicator in various roles to conveythe firm’s advertising message. The relevance of the findings for South African marketersis highlighted and suggestions for further research are proposed.