The influence of family communication patterns on parental reactions toward advertising: A cross-national examination

The global children's market holds tremendous potential, yet little researc h has been conducted on international attitudes toward advertising and fami ly communication patterns. Using consumer socialization as a theoretical fo undation, the authors examine family communication patterns and general att itudes toward television advertising among mothers of children three to eig ht years of age in the United States and Japan. A four-category typology ba sed on concept- and socio-orientation was used to classify mothers of both nationalities. Laissez-faire (low socio-, low concept-orientation) mothers had the most positive attitudes toward and the lowest mediation of their ch ildren's exposure to television advertising. pluralistic (low socio-, high concept-orientation) and consensual (high on both dimensions) mothers had t he highest mediation of and most negative attitudes toward advertising. The responses of protective mothers (high socio-, low concept-orientation) wer e between those extremes. Overall, American. mothers were distributed relat ively equally across categories, whereas Japanese mothers were classified p rimarily as either laissez-faire or protective. The results confirm and ext end the findings of consumer socialization research and yield practical imp lications for global segmentation.