Explaining the effects of targeted online advertising on children's cognitive, affective, and behavioral brand responses

Increasingly, information from children's profile pages on social network sites is used to target online advertising. This practice has raised concerns in society and academia, however, effects of profile targeting on children remained unstudied. Therefore, this study focused on children's cognitive, affective and, behavioral responses to brands in targeted online advertising. In addition, this study tested three explanatory mechanisms. An experiment (N = 231 children between 8-13 years old) showed that profile targeted online ads resulted in more positive brand attitudes and increased purchase intention. There were no effects on brand memory. The effects are mediated by an affective mechanism that works via attitude toward the ad. This study shows that children did not perceive the ads to be targeted or personally relevant, implying that children do not process targeted online advertising in an critical manner. Rather they show less elaborate processing, which makes children vulnerable to persuasion by profile targeted advertising.