P/M/128. Identify and evaluate the role and impact of environmental influences (e.g. advertising, family, peer groups) on the socialization of young children and adolescents as consumers. How and why do marketing managers need to take account of differences between adult and young consumers in their marketing policies?

This essay analyses the significance and impact of consumer socialization processes through patterns of family communication, significance of peers and the mass media in particular advertising, during the period between childhood and adolescence. The essay considers two models relating to consumer behaviour, Moschis and Churchill's conceptual model (1978) helps to explain the processes of consumer socialization and Maslow's hierarchy of needs is used to identify the differences between adult and child consumers.