The impact of adultification and sexualization of children in children fashion advertising and the mediating role of ethical judgment: A parents' perspective

Abstract

Nowadays, children are increasingly targeted as consumers, both in terms of advertising as well as products and services marketed to them. In that context, children fashion has grown and evolved considerably. A growing trend in children clothing is the adultification, that is to say, the tendency of children clothing to literally downsize adult clothing. In fashion advertising, children happen to be dressed and posed as adults, which might sometimes be disturbing. As adult appearance often draws attention to sexual body parts, this fashion trend also brings another phenomenon: the sexualization of children, i.e., inappropriately giving sexual characteristics to children. Adultification and sexualization of children have raised many criticisms and were therefore accused of threatening childhood innocence. As a matter of fact, adultification and especially sexualization have been found to lead to negative outcomes for healthy youth development. However, little is known on how parents tend to react to such fashion advertising as consumers. Through a between-subjects experimental design with parents, the impact of adultification and sexualization of children in children fashion advertising on attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, purchase intention and endorser attractiveness was studied. Moreover, given the ethical issue imbued in this topic, the mediating role of ethical judgment was tested. Results showed a significant negative impact on purchase intention, with ethical judgment mediating this effect. Those findings suggest that parents consider such advertising as unethical, which consequently decreases their purchase intention for the brand advertised. This paper concludes with the managerial and theoretical implications, followed by the limitations and ideas for potential future research.