Ovidius University Annals: Economic Sciences Series (Aug 2023)
Materialism Unwrapped: Examining the Values Promoted in Television Commercials for Games and Toys During the Holiday Season. A Content Analysis of December 2020 and 2021
Abstract
Games and toys advertisements play an instrumental role in consumers' socialisation process. They help children discover the products available on the market, and shape their desires, attitudes and behaviour according to the values promoted. In this paper we aimed to identify whether Romanian toy and game advertisements encourage materialism. Based on the literature on materialism we constructed codes for content analysis using four characteristics: happiness associated with possession of a toy, addressability to the child, collectability and increased selfesteem. Based on these four codes we conducted a content analysis of TV ads for games and toys from December 2020 and December 2021. We analysed seven TV channels, 2070 minutes of content each year and 248 ads. The results illustrated that materialism is encouraged in the majority of TV ads. The research brings attention to the ethics of promoting products to children.
