Food for Kids: How Children Influence their Parents Purchasing Decisions

During the last decades, sociological changes have modified the role of children within families: participatory models have become more widespread, to the detriment of more author- itative ones: this change has had consequences also in refer- ence to families’ purchases. In scientific literature some scholars have shown that this influence is real, and marketers try to take advantage of this through a communication style that attempts to “teach” children how to pester their parents: this is the so-called nag factor. To understand which are the parental attitudes toward kids’ food products, a questionnaire has been administered in schools (nursery and primary) to a random sample of parents, representative of a larger sample of kids (200 in all). Findings showed that pestering is a real attitude, in particular among the littlest children. Moreover, these findings reflect in part the reality described by marketing literature: children influence the purchasing decisions of their parents, but this influence decreases when mothers and fathers are more aware of the importance of a quality-based diet.