Effect of Advertisement on Children’s Purchase Intention: The Mediating Role of Advertisement Recall

Although advertisement is considered as an attention grabbing tool, however, existing literature largely ignored whether such advertisement has any effect on childrens to recall the advertised products. This study thus aims to examine the effects of television advertisement on childrens’ purchase intention through the mediating role of advertisement recall in the Asian context. Since the target population is unknown, a non-probability sampling based convenient sampling approach was used to collect data. Data were collected from 245 parents of their 448 childrens in the context of confectionary products in Bangladesh. Partial least square based structural equation modeling was used to analyze the collected data. The results show that information, entertainment and product packaging displayed in advertisement significantly affect childrens’ advertisement recall. Advertisement recall is also found to have influence on childrens’ purchase intentions. Further, advertisement recall fully mediates in the relationships between information and purchase intentions; entertainment and purchase intentions; and packaging and purchase intentions. This study also offers significant theoretical and managerial implications.


INTRODUCTION
Advertisement plays an important role in convincing audiences to purchase firms' products and services. It stimulates consumers to think, evaluate, purchase and consume the products or services (Haider and Shakib, 2018). More specifically, television advertisement catches the attention of target customers through a message and influences their purchase intentions (Broekemier et al. 2008;Weilbacher, 2003;Turley and Milliman, 2000). Nowadays, firms target childrens by designing attractive and persuasive advertisements to create an emotional attachment with the products (Wilcox et al., 2004). This study defined television advertisement "as that kind of paid commercial message which is delivered to the children during the television programs or after any other television program" (Quinn, 2002, p. 17-18). Since childrens are always connected with television and other electronic gadgets (Gutnick et al., 2011), they become an attractive segment for companies. Hence, marketers take this trend as an opportunity to advertise their products directly to them (Calvert, 2008).
Extant literature on television advertisement focuses on content creativity, music, sounds, voice, celebrity endorsement, brand name, consumer attitude, behavior and so on (Lewis et al., 2012;Lindner et al., 2009;Dews, 2012). The effect of television advertisement has been studied on children attitudes (Jolly, 2011;Preetha and Radhika, 2016), buying behavior (Jain and Kaul, 2014), unnecessary purchasing (Wilcox et al., 2004) and unhealthy food consumption (Sheik and Juliet, 2016). The findings of Apejoye (2013) suggest a positive relationship between celebrity endorsement and advertisement effectiveness. Although insightful, such line of research efforts mostly conducted in the Western context (Preetha and Radhika, 2016;Kelly et al., 2010;Nisbett, 2003). Few studies conducted in the Asian context that primarily focus on childrens' exposure to television advertisement, cognitive and behavioral efforts, (Chan, 2000;Islam and Goni, 2020;Kelly et al., 2016). For example, Chan (2000) examined Chinese children's perceptions, cognitive efforts and understanding of television advertising message and content. Han et al., (2013) and Karupaiah et al., (2008) identified that south Asian childrens are highly exposed to television advertisements. Islam and Goni (2020) found that television advertisement influenced the behavior of young childrens. Besides, Kelly et al (2016) stated that children in the Asia-Pacific region are more exposed to huge number of unhealthy food advertising on television. Although the aim of advertisement is to facilitate consumers' recall of their feelings and thoughts associated with the product or brand (Coulter et al., 2001;Heaton and Paris, 2006); however, there is lacking of research on the attributes that should be displayed properly in television advertisement and enhance childrens recall, which in turn lead them to purchase intentions. More specifically, how the attributes like information, entertainment, and product packaging displayed in television advertisement influence childrens' advertisement recall is still remain under investigated. To the best of our knowledge, no research thus far explored such effects in the Asian context. Examining this research gap is particularly important because Asian market is large and growing fast (Coyle et al., 2004). Moreover, Asian consumers are more fascinated to advertisement attributes that seems familiar and reliable (Silayoi and Speece, 2007). Due to concern of the collectivist culture in Asia, childrens enjoy watching television together with their family members and exchange their enjoyment, memory with others that may facilitate them to remember the television advertisement at the purchasing point. Furthermore, the effectiveness of advertisement also depends on how far targeted consumers (e.g., childrens) understand and remember the delivered message at the point of purchasing. Therefore, studying such attributes of television advertisement in the Asian context is essential to devise appropriate strategies for the firms.
In this study, we argue that several attributes such as information, entertainment, and product packaging that are displayed in television advertisement influence childrens' advertisement recall. Television advertisement informs as well as entertains childrens in the form of music, storyline, animation, pleasant voice (Tarabashkina et al., 2018;Cotte et al., 2005). A nice looking display of packaging also attracts children the most (Gelperowic and Beharrell (1994). When childrens watch television advertisement for long or shorttime, the favorite features of the advertisement saves in their mind for future processing (Ambler and Burne, 1999). It is well-known that childrens' memory is strong enough to save any sound or video shown in advertisement and recall them instantly (Galst and White, 1976). Therefore, this study posits that information, entertainment, and product packaging displayed in television advertisement influence childrens' advertisement recall, which eventually influence their purchase intentions.
The current study thus contributes to the existing advertisement literature in three ways. First, this study explores the effect of television advertisement's attributes on childrens' recall. Second, this study identifies how childrens' advertisement recall can influence their purchase intention. Third, this study examines such effects in the context of confectionary products in Bangladesh (a country in South Asia). Following this, conceptual model and hypotheses have been developed based on the extensive literature review. Subsequently, the results of data analysis are presented. Finally, we concluded with a discussion of our empirical findings, limitations and directions for further research directions and practical implications for Asian business.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
We adopted Mehrabian and Russell's (1974)'s "Stimulus Organism Response" (SOR) framework to develop the conceptual framework. The SOR framework suggests that stimulus affects organism, which affect customers' responses. In this study, stimulus is represented by a collection of attributes used in television advertisement such as information, entertainment and packaging. The organism, represented by recall, is an internal process work between stimulus and customers' responses. Finally, responses are the results from the stimulus and organism i.e., outcome i.e., in our study responses means childrens' purchase intentions.
Therefore, this study examines how the attributes of advertisement such as information, entertainment and packaging (stimulus) influence purchase intention (responses) among childrens. The mediating role of advertisement recall (organism) has been incorporated in the below Figure 1.

Information and Recall
Advertising is always been considered as one of the most influencing tools for communicating product or brand with target customer, especially with children (Panwar, 2006;Caruana and Vassallo, 2003). It is also known as the key to enter customers' minds. Advertisements that provide relevant information help consumers resolve some ambiguity so that they may develop their understanding of how well a product will match their individual preferences while taking purchase decision (Thompson and Hamilton, 2006;Sujan, 1985). Many researchers have agreed that children as consumers also prefer informative advertisement (Abernethy and Franke 1996, Ducoffe, 1995) and if the information seems selfrelevant, it may draw out their attention (Bettman 1979), which is essential for advertisement recall. It is worth remembering that informational clues are signals that consumers can use to understand their decision about a product or service during shopping (Olson and Jacoby, 1972). Thus, it is hypothesized that advertisements that provide useful information to children are very effective in persuading them to recall the advertised product. H1: Information in advertisement influences advertisement recall.

Entertainment and Recall
Entertainment is the most preferable attributes used by marketers to target childrens through advertising of their products, which convey message about the fantasy and fun (De Veirman et al., 2019). Advertisements that contain impressive music, lyrics and rhythm, communicative messages, influential action, unique and catchy slogans, finelooking scenes, shots and superior product demonstration are mostly recalled by the consumer, particularly by the children (Alexomanolaki et al., 2007). Therefore, firms use extensive techniques such as animation, funny voice, music and so on to make the advertisement entertained (Lewis at el., 2012). Earlier research argued that likeability is found to have an important role in influencing future recall of the product (Valkeinen, 2020) and purchase intention (DuPlessis 1994). Goldberg and Gorn (1978) stated that advertisements using humour, up tempo music and jingles, attract childrens the most. Few studies observed that childrens like advertisements because advertisements are entertaining and help them to recall the product (Norris and Colman, 1994; Information Entertainment Packaging

Recall
Purchase Intention Rolandelli, 1989;Ward, 1972). Other studies also found a significant relationship between entertainment and advertisement effectiveness (Lloyd and Clancy, 1991). It is also argued that whenever consumers find something funny triggers their minds (Karailievova, 2012). As a result, they can recall the product while shopping, which ultimately results in the purchasing of that product. So it is hypothesized that: H2: Entertainment in advertisement influences advertisement recall.

Packaging and Recall
Packaging is the key component of communication (Ahmed et al., 2015) and has been described as a vehicle for communication and branding (Rettie and Brewer, 2000). Product packaging is known as one of the potential means to gain childrens' attention. It is also considered as a driving force that communicates product's attributes and benefits on it (Hill and Tilley, 2002). It is often said that children usually make their purchase decision based on product packaging (Mau et al., 2016). It may also attract attention and create excitement (Alexomanolaki et al., 2007). Child-oriented visual elements refer to graphics, size, shape, image, brand mascots, colors, logos, brand name, characters and premiums etc. (Hill and Tilley, 2002). Child-oriented packaging influences children the most and childrens are mostly recall the packaging with visual elements (Hota and Charry, 2014). Moreover, packaging color helps consumers to draw attention and visualize the products (Ahmed and Javed, 2015). Lemon et al., (2009) and Orth and Crouch (2014) argued that package catches buyer's mind to a specific product. According to Deliya and Parmar (2012), packaging has a role to change the mindset of consumers. Clement (2007) found an association between package's color and products' choice. He argued that childrens favor the colorful packaging since they try to relate color with tastes. Moreover, Elliott (2008) identified four colors (e.g., yellow, green, red, and blue) that childrens prefer the most for food products. Underwood et al. (2001) suggested that childrens are inspired by images than any words and children's products are featured with cartoons on packages (Hill and Tilley, 2002). Chapman et al., (2006) found that 75% of food products for children in Australia had cartoon characters on packaging. These arguments suggest us the following hypothesis: H3: Packaging of products influence advertisement recall.

Recall and Purchase Intention
Recall is a psychological factor that reflects the strength of memory. As a measure of advertising effectiveness (Mehta and Purvis, 2006), it measures the advertisement's noticeability and attention, and shows the extent to which the advertisement's content has been captured a desirable place in the consumer minds (Donovan et al., 2003). Advertisement recall, in this study, is defined as the degree to which an advertisement is retrieved from memory spontaneously or with a cue. Since advertisers want children to be engaged by advertisements so that a memorial association can be created with the product, many researchers have recognized that recall is definitely a vital aspect of advertisement to be effective (Saleem, and Abideen, 2011). Thus, recall in advertisement is one of the most crucial among several attributes of advertising effectiveness (Mehta and Purvis, 2006).
Since consumers cannot remember everything about advertisement and some elements occupy space in consumer memories for a while and others fade away (Kumar, 2015), recall helps in identifying advertisement's strong points, which is useful for future purchase decision. Recall helps to acquire specific information regarding the product (Keller et al., 1998) and it is assumed that the more an individual remembers an advertisement, the more likely it is to come to mind while shopping (Bushman and Bonacci, 2002). Recalled brands have better chances of being selected rather than a brand that is not recalled by the audiences (Bressoud et al., 2010). Developmental psychology studies indicate that pictographic cues stimulate thoughts about objects (Kieras, 1978). Moreover, Macklin (1994) demonstrated that childrens are more likely to recall the brand names presented in advertisements, particularly when given associative visual cues. Thus, we hypothesize that: H4: Recall influences childrens' purchase intention.

The Mediating Role of Recall
One of the key objectives of advertisement is to aid consumers to recall the thoughts and feelings associated with the product (Zaltman, 2003). Fan (2010) stated that television commercials can be primary source of information for childrens who are very attentive to new products, especially food products. Since children prefer informative advertisement (Abernethy and Franke 1996, Ducoffe, 1995), they can match their preferences at the time purchasing (Thompson and Hamilton, 2006;Sujan, 1985). Information also provides some signal that help to remember advertisements (Olson and Jacoby, 1972). Nora (2014) argues that childrens prefer visual information, which is a key source of television advertisement. Besides, childrens' minds catches fun and cartoon tagged with products advertisement and help them to recognize such products (Lapierre et al., 2011). Silayoi & Speece (2007) argues that customers are typically influenced by the visual aesthetics of packaging. Moreover, Zanot (1984) found that the customers prefer advertising that helps in decision making while purchasing. The SOR theory also suggests that an underlying mechanism (i.e., advertisement recall) works between stimulus (e.g., information, entertainment, and packaging) and responses (e.g., purchase intentions) among customers (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). Thus, it is hypothesized that advertisement recall mediates between information, entertainment and product packaging and purchase intention among the childrens. H5a: Recall mediates the relationship between information and childrens' purchase intention. H5b: Recall mediates the relationship between entertainment and childrens' purchase intention. H5c: Recall mediates the relationship between packaging and childrens' purchase intention.

METHOD
We examine the current research in the context of confectionary products in Bangladesh. Such context is appropriate and meets the study purpose since childrens prefer to have confectionary products (e.g., chocolates, wafer, chips, juice etc.) in their everyday lives. Moreover, 72.5% of childrens demand to purchase confectionary products after watching advertisement (Preetha and Radhika, 2016). Therefore, since parents usually buy these products on behalf of their childrens, data were collected from 245 parents of 448 childrens. A non-probability sampling based convenient sampling approach was used to collect data. Besides, a self-administered survey was conducted to collect data through a structured questionnaire.
Final sample size is 245 respondents with 83.3% female, 55.5% in the range of 31 to 40 years, and 38.8% experience with bachelor education. To reduce common method bias effect, we followed several steps. First, respondents' privacy were ensured and requested to answer carefully (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Second, we conducted the survey both peak and off peak hour of the eight week period. Third, we followed Harman's single-factor test and found that the first factor did not account for the majority of the variances (34 percent). Thus, common method bias is not an issue for this study.
The respondents were answered about information, entertainment, packaging, recall and purchase intentions related to television advertisement and other demographic questions. All the construct's items were taken from existing literature and contextualized to fit for the study. The scale items of the information and entertainment were adapted from the study of Gulla & Purohit (2013). Packaging items were adapted from Ogba and Johnson (2010). Moreover, the scale items of recall and purchase intentions were adopted from the studies of Wilcox et al (2004) and Hameed et al (2014), respectively. Items were formulated as statements and measured using seven point Likert Scale from 'Strongly disagree' (1) to 'Strongly agree' (7). To ensure the face and content validity, we discussed with the senior faculties of marketing and did necessary amendments in the questionnaire (Bryman, 2016). We also run a pilot survey among 30 respondents before the final survey to ensure its consistency.

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
We used PLS-SEM to test the conceptual model. Measurement model ensures that the scale items used to measure the constructs are reliable and valid for measuring the variables. We found that each indicator's outer loadings exceeded the threshold level of 0.65 (Hair et al., 2006) (see Figure 2). The Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability values were above the threshold of 0.70 (Hair et al., 2006). Convergent validity was tested by evaluating average variance extracted (AVE) and each construct's AVE value was higher than the threshold level of 0.50 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) (see Table 1). Finally, cross-loadings values of all items were loaded highly on the respective constructs and did not loaded highly on other constructs. Thus, the hypothesized model confirmed adequate convergent and discriminant validity.  The structural model is evaluated by the estimation of path coefficients and 2 R values. Analysis show that recall was significantly affected by information (  =0.3106, t= 3.63, p <0.01); entertainment (  = 0.2855, t= 2.42, p <0.01) and packaging (  =0.2801, t = 3.04, p <0.01). Moreover, the effect of recall on purchase intentions (  = 0.4540, t = 4.85, p <0.01) was found to be significant (see Figure 3 and Table  2). These results support our hypotheses H1, H2, H3, and H4. The   To test the mediation hypotheses (H5a, H5b and H5c), we used PLS-SEM. To do so, we run three models separately. For example, model 1 includes information → recall → purchase intention, model 2 includes entertainment → recall → purchase intention, and model 3 includes packaging → recall → purchase intention. To find the value of direct path (independent variable → dependent variable), we eliminated the mediator from the models and find the paths significant. Hence, the effects of information, entertainment and packaging on purchase intention are fully mediated by advertising recall. Therefore, hypotheses H5a, H5b and H5c were supported.

DISCUSSION
This study provides empirical evidence of the association between advertising attributes and childrens' purchase intentions through the mediating role of advertisement recall in the Asian context. This study revealed that product packaging, entertaining aspect of advertisement and advertisement information influence advertisement recall, which eventually enhances childrens' purchase intentions. Moreover, this study also found that advertisement recall fully mediates the effects of information, entertainment and packaging on purchase intention. The findings of the study are in line with the findings of Calvert (2008) who argued that commercial appeals to childrens have increased due to the extensive exposure of advertisements with the advent of cable television. The findings are consistent with the prior findings of Gulla (2013), who revealed that television advertisement affects childrens' attitude, which eventually affect childrens' buying behavior.

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
This study also offers practical implications for the managers, especially in the context of Asian business. Childrens in Asian countries seem to be more vulnerable to television advertising (Kelly et al, 2016) and the current study helps managers to understand the role of television advertisement attributes that affects childrens' purchase intentions. It is an important fact that the content of the television advertisement need to be presented in more attractive and audiovisual format so that it makes the childrens understand who are not even able to read properly and hence more concentration should be given on packaging and entertainment of the advertisement. Kelly et al., (2010) found that the marketers offer highest rates of television food advertising during childrens' peak viewing times in Asia. Considering the findings, advertisement should be an important source of enjoyment by integrating vital elements such as animation, jingles, humor, child oriented song, voice, emotions. Advertisers can also depict imaginary figures and animation movies to produce purchasing desire among the childrens. Besides, advertisers can use child celebrities to make advertisement more entertaining and informative to childrens. Incorporation of these features in the storyline of the advertisement would be helpful for the childrens to identify and remember the attributes of television advertisement.
In addition, marketers should scrutinize alternative strategies regarding packaging and advertisement appeals. If companies want children to recall the advertised products, they should develop packaging in such a way that attract childrens, and communicate relevant information to them. Therefore, since a well-packaged product is self-advertising and serves as a purchase appeal and add value to the product (Lifu, 2012), packaging elements such as colors, texts, images, structure, need to be combined properly to provide a real visual situation (Ampuero and Villa, 2006). Moreover, since childrens in Asian culture are more likely to pay attention to the moral behaviors in the advertising content (Chan, 2000), advertisement attributes would have to be tailored as per the ethical and moral issues of the Asian market to be successful.
Furthermore, since the area of advertising is growing day by day and the childrens make purchase decisions at the point of purchase (Underwood, 2003), advertisement recall plays significant role to influence childrens' purchase intentions.
Since advertisements have the power to produce long-lasting effects in consumers' mind (Lodish et al., 1995) and childrens are spending a significant amount of time in watching television, there is a high chance to recall such advertised products while purchasing. In this connection, an effective advertising campaign has to be impressive enough to be memorable one. Hence, this study will help the practitioners to know the childrens' understanding of the message communicated through advertising. Hence, marketers should look for new ways to convince customers, reach them in different platforms and to build strong memory among them. Therefore, to enter into the Asian market, marketers should concentrate more on the information, entertainment and packaging features of television advertisement to create a strong memory among childrens so that they can remember advertisement during their shopping. This study thus helps marketing managers by exploring the advertisement attributes that need to consider within the context of Asian childrens.

LIMITATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
The present study has pointed out some important attributes of advertisement like entertainment, information, packaging and their impact on recall and purchase intention among childrens in the Asian context. However, the study has few limitations. First, this study did not collected responses from childrens directly rather considered their parents' responses. Second, this study considered only the advertisement related to confectionary products. Future research can address these limitations through an experimental study by involving childrens directly. Although recall is a necessary condition for advertising effectiveness; however not sufficient condition (Ambler and Burne, 1999), and hence future research can investigate other underlying mechanisms that play role between advertising attributes and purchase intention. Future research can consider the depth and breadth of childrens' recall to understand television advertisement. Further research can explore whether there is any role of child celebrity from home and abroad to enhance childrens' recall. Moreover, future research can test which attributes of advertisement telecasted in virtual and social media platforms affect childrens' the most in recalling the advertisement. In addition, since childrens may think differently based on their culture, future research can highlight how advertising is perceived by them within various cultural frameworks (i.e., East Asia vs. South Asia and Eastern vs. Western).