• 2009
• 2008

From SpongeBob to Dora and from Frosted Flakes to Count Chocula, cartoon characters and names that imply a sugary taste are widely used to market cereal to kids. New research presented by Matthew Lapierre and Sarah Vaala, doctoral candidates at the Annenberg School for Communication and researchers in the Children's Media Lab, shows that these strategies can have a significant impact on children’s assessment of taste.  

In their research presented at the American Public Health Association’s 136th Annual Meeting & Exposition in San Diego, Lapierre and Vaala found that 4- to 6-year-old children who were shown cereal boxes with popular film characters on the front reported higher taste ratings than those given the cereal in a box without the characters. They also found that kids preferred the cereal with a healthy name (Healthy Bits) over the same cereal with a sugary name (Sugar Bits). In fact, when kids were given the cereal named “Healthy Bits,” there was no difference in their assessment of the cereal relative to the character on the box. However, when the cereal was named "Sugar Bits" and there was no character on the box, children did not respond well to it. It was only in those instances where the cereal had characters on the box that they reported enjoying the taste.

These results provide evidence as to the powerful effect that kid-friendly characters can have on children's assessment of consumer products, as well as have substantial implications for researchers and practitioners concerned with the influence of marketing on children's diets.