Training stories in children’s targeted commercials: Does it work?

The term " training story " is introduced in this paper to describe any short story with instructional aim. Recently, a growing number of television commercials of kids' foods uses training stories, relevant or not with the advertised products. The study seeks to answer two main questions: if ads with training stories targeted at kids really transfer knowledge to children, and if these ads create a positive brand perception on both parents and children. A model of mixed research was used in order to answer the research questions. As survey instruments two semi structured questionnaires were formed. A total sample of 57 children aged 6-12 years and the equal number of their parents participated in the study. Results suggest that commercials using training stories can enhance parents' brand perception while in children they create a brand perception comparable to that of advertisements which use other techniques. In addition, findings confirm that the instructional nature of this form of advertising is strong and understandable by children. In spite of the existing limitations, resulting from the low generalizability of our findings – due to the small sample size – this study offers a new conceptual framework, by adding the issue of the training stories in the advertising research, which from a research perspective remains uninvestigated. By adding this emerged topic, this article contributes to the development of a new research area that could reap considerable benefits for both marketers and training practitioners, especially for those who target their efforts at children.