Visual representation of the buying act by children of high-income families

This study focuses on identification of the visual representation of the shopping act by children in the range of nine years old. We asked students at a private school catering to highincome families to draw pictures about “going shopping”. The data collection process was aimed at identifying what a particular group thinks about a determined topic, that is, the social representation of shopping among this group of kids. The results indicate that these children view consumption as a moment of pleasure, generally engaged in individually, and they do not yet fully understand the concept of money and the need to pay for products. Besides this, the children studied presented some difficulties in correctly representing the names of brands, but were reasonably accurate in representing logos.


INTRODUCTION
his study seeks to understand the way preteen consumers represent the act of shopping.The interest in this theme comes from a variety of issues discussed in this introduction.The first is the current social situation, where consumption is one of the main human activities.McNeal (2007) expands on this idea and says that people are consumers around the clock, i.e., if they are not buying, they are consuming products at virtually all moments of their lives.In this context, some 44 million Brazilian children up to the age of 12 (IBGE, 2006) are passing through the process called consumer socialization (Ward, 1974).These kids are in the process of learning and understanding how to behave as individualsconsumers.
This market segment is very relevant for companies, not only to sell toys and other products aimed at kids, but for their future importance as lifelong consumers (McNeal, 1999(McNeal, , 1992).However, this economic relevance is not extensively reflected in scientific articles in Brazil.In this respect, this research effort brings the first results dealing with children's comprehension of buying.This focus is justified by the need to understand how children learn the concepts related to consumption in general, to shed light on their insertion in a consumer society.A comprehensive understating of this process can be of great value to companies, nongovernmental organizations concerned with the relationship of children with consumption, parents and students of the theme.
In the international literature it is possible to identify two currents of study regarding children as consumers.One of these currents, exemplified by authors such as McNeal (1992McNeal ( , 1999)), Brée (1993) and Montigneaux (2003), seeks to understand child consumers and how to create products suitable for this buying segment.The other current focuses on the harm that can be caused by the use of marketing tools aimed at childrensee the articles of Kline (1993), Schor (2004) and Linn (2005Linn ( , 2005b)).We contribute to both currents, because understanding how children represent the moment of buying deepens the comprehension of the characteristics of these consumers and measures the impact of marketing actions on them.
The way kids express their relationship with shopping and consumption can indicate the impact of marketing efforts on them.In this sense, this study seeks to deepen knowledge of how children think and what they understand about the buying process.The relevance of this study is based on the lack of works in Brazil investigating the effect of exposure to marketing actions on the vision of children about the shopping experience.
The article is divided into six sections including this introduction.In the second section we present the theoretical framework; in the third we explain the data collection and analysis method; in the fourth we analyze the data; in the fifth we present and discuss the results; and in the last section we present our final considerations.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this section we summarize the main theoretical themes related to our objectiveto understand how child consumers represent the shopping act.This will provide the base for understanding the data collection and analysis.We first present the importance of the preteen consumer segment, both economically and socially.Then we analyze some works that cover the process of socialization of children as consumers, and then examine previous works that have identified how kids represent the act of shopping.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPORTANCE OF THE CHILDREN'S MARKET
The development and sale of products aimed specifically at children only dates back some 100 years (Cross, 2010).While as recently as the 1920s, most toys for children were made by parents or children themselves out of leftover wood, cloth and other materials (Cross, 2010), by the 1950s, driven by the postwar baby boom, this had changed drastically (McNeal, 1992).The fertility rate rose from 2.36 in 1940 to 3.9 in 1947 (Rosenberg, 2011, causing the number of children to double.Economically, the American GPD rose from US$ 200 million in 1940 to US$ 600 million in 1960 (Conte & Karr, 2001).The purchasing power from the economic growth over this period also gradually trickled down from adults to teenagers to children (McNeal, 1969).
Since the baby boom, many transformations have occurred in the children's segment.
The most notable has been the transformation in the range of products aimed at kids: before it was mainly restricted to toys, candies/sweets, breakfast cereals and soft drinks, while now it also includes high-tech items and kids' line extensions of adult branded products (McNeal, 1999).This rise of children as consumers has been both driven by and attracted increased marketing efforts aimed at this buying segment.
Although many of these historical factors affected Brazil, it took much longer for this to result in the development of marketing actions focused on children, as well as to attract the attention of academics in this subject, which is still incipient in the country.For this reason, most of the literature summarized here covers the American market.
Brazilian firms still lag behind their American and European peers and competitors in their sophistication regarding marketing aimed at kids (Veloso, 2008).However, Brazil's steady economic growth in recent years have certainly increased competition, requiring Brazilian companies to develop their competitive capacities, including greater focus on the kids' market.
Nowadays products for children generate substantial revenues in Brazil.For example, toys annually bring in some R$ 1 billion, clothes account for R$ 5 billion, and magazines and comic books generate slightly over R$ 350 million (Nickelodeon, 2007).Marketing efforts aimed at kids have evolved to meet the more sophisticated demands of these consumers, with a wider range of specific products (Brée, 1993).The strategy of simply making superficial changes in adult products was abandoned in the 1980s and 90s.
As mentioned, the importance of the children's sector results not only from the actions of companies, but also due to historical and social transformation in the way society is structured and the role of children in that structure.To illustrate, Chart 1 summarizes the transformations in American society that have influenced this process.

Increased number of providers per family
With the increased participation of women in the workforce, it is increasingly common to find families where both parents work.

Reduced number of children per family
The decline in the fertility rate has produced families with fewer children, meaning more to spend on each child.

Older (and richer) parents
In the past (1960s and 70s), the expectation was for women to have children before the age of 30.This perspective has changed and nowadays women are delaying motherhood.This means that more children are born into families that are better structured, with both parents working with consolidated careers, generating more income.

Increasing rate of fractured families
A higher rate of divorce/separation and remarriage means more gift-giving relatives.
When kids spend part of their time with the father and part with the mother, this requires purchasing everyday products in duplicate.

Single-parent households
It is increasingly common to find households headed by single women.This tends to require children to assume responsibilities sooner than otherwise would be the case.Among these responsibilities are shopping and taking care of the home and generally playing a more participative role.In these cases, the children can also receive income from an absent father.

Greater importance of grandparents
With the increasing participation of women in the labor force, it has become necessary to find help to take care of the kids.Grandparents are natural candidates for this task.It is common for these grandparents to give the children money and gifts.

The guilt factor
Single and divorced parents tend to have less time to spend raising their children.This situation creates a feeling of guilt and an attempt to assuage this feeling by buying goods and services, with the idea that this will translate into "quality time".For example, a divorced father will tend to want to take maximum advantage of the time spent with the child and will be more financially generous during that time.

Greater worry about children's future
The formative years of today's parents were periods of various economic crises and changes, especially less job security.Such parents want to make sure their kids are better prepared to face the challenges of a rapidly changing world, causing higher spending on extracurricular classes for their children, such as computers, languages, sports, music, etc.The trends listed by McNeal (1999) are similar to many social transformations that have occurred in Brazil over the same period.Of particular importance is the increased number of providers per household because of the greater participation of women in the labor market, as can be seen in Figure 1.The fertility rate has also been falling in Brazil, causing a smaller number of children per family.As can be seen in Figure 2, this figure fell from 6.28 in 1960 to only 1.94 in 2009.Very similar to the pattern in the United States, the fertility rate peaked after the Second World War, in the 1940s through the 60s.In the United States the rate rose from 2.0 in 1940 to 3.0 in 1950 and to 3.7 in 1960, before declining to 3.4 in the mid-1960s (Wattenberg, 1985).In the first decade of this century, the American fertility rate stabilized in the range of 2.06 to 2.1 (CIA, 2011).
In both countries, the average family size is now smaller than in the past, especially in large cities.The development of this family structure is centered on marriage patterns, as people are tending to wait longer to wed.According to the IBGE, the average age of men at first marriage rose from 27 years in 2000 to 28 in 2005 and 29 in 2010 (G1, 2011).In turn, for women the average age rose from 24 years in 2000 to 26 in 2005 and 2010.
On the other hand, the increasing rate of separation and divorce is leaving more fractured families.In 2010 there were about 933 thousand marriages against 243 thousand divorces and 67 thousand separations (G1, 2011).The average age of separation/divorce for women is 39 years and the corresponding age for men is 43 years (G1, 2011).For such couples that have children, the woman has custody in 87.3% of the cases, while men have custody in 5.6% of the cases, with custody being shared 5.5% of the time (G1, 2011).These figures point to the importance of households composed of mothers and their children, which now represent about 17% of households in the country.This and other information is consolidated in Figure 3.In both the American and Brazilian context, children have taken on greater importance for the market.This can be understood in three ways, as presented in Chart 2.

Primary Market
Children constitute a primary market when considering they have their own money, desires, needs and authority and the willingness to spend their money on their needs and desires.
US$ 8 billion, of which US$ 6 billion is spent on toys, sweets, clothing, etc., with the rest saved.

Influence Market
Direct influence occurs when the child convinces the parent(s) to buy certain products or services, such as to eat at a particular restaurant, buy a particular brand of ice cream or choose another item when shopping with parents.Indirect influence occurs when the child's wishes and preferences are taken into account by parents at the moment of purchasing a particular product or service.
Children have a direct influence on over US$ 130 billion in household purchases, with a similar indirect influence.

Future Market
Children are the independent consumers of the future for all types of products and services.In working with this focus, companies must have a long-range vision of when the children will become adults.Only then will the investments start to pay off.
Of the three markets, this has the largest potential.Companies that invest in the kids' segment are developing loyal customers in the future.
BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev. (Engl.ed., Online), Vitória, v. 10, n. 3, Art. 1, p. 1 -33, jul.-sep. 2013 www.bbronline.com.brBased on the findings of McNeal (1992), other authors like Vecchio (2002) and Acuff (1997) began to study financial questions related to children.For example, according to Vecchio (2002), at the time of that writing American kids between four and twelve years old received some US$ 15 billion a year, of which US$ 4 billion was saved, and children in this age range also exercised influence over household spending of some US$ 160 billion.At the age of four years, children already influenced around 20% of their families' buying, rising to 80% at the age of 10 (Vecchio, 2002).
Brée (1993) analyzed the results of a survey by Saffar et al. (1990) and indicated the need for companies to pay more attention to the kids' market.According to the author, only 6.5% of products aimed at adults find commercial success, but this success rate is 30% among child consumers.The author also argues that children are more avid for technological novelties, and in some cases they develop a better knowledge than do adults, especially in product categories like televisions, computers and music players: "It is by no means absurd to think that this locomotive role in matters of innovation will grow in the future" (Brée, 1993, p. 18).

SOCIALIZATION OF CONSUMERS AND FIRST SHOPPING EXPERIENCES
For children to assume their roles in society, they need to pass through a process called socialization (Brée, 1995).Part of this learning, involving buying and consuming products, is called consumer socialization (Ward, 1974;Moschis & Churchill, 1978).The theory emphasizes the importance of socializing agents in the process of individuals' adjustment to their social role as consumers (McNeal, 1992;Moschis & Moore, 1979), with these agents consisting of the family, school, friends and the mass media (White, 1997).Coutheux & Umeda (2004) stress the phenomenon of urbanization in large cities as a factor that reduces the impact of friends on socialization, but also enhances the role of the media in influencing the buying habits of children, who spend increasing amounts of time at home.Despite the advances made in understanding this process, Roedder-John (1999, p. 205)   and their acquisition of capacities as consumers.This process mainly happens between the ages of five and seven years.Among the competencies that children acquire during this process is understanding of the market, i.e., comprehension of the relations between buying and consuming, the role of companies and particularly the role of advertising in this process.
Only after understanding how advertisers appeal to consumers can children take a more critical view of the messages conveyed by companies.Until this happens, kids are at the mercy of advertising strategies.The targeting of children by advertisers has attracted protests from child-protection activists (Macklin, 1985).Despite a good deal of research, with varying agendas, there is still no consensus among researchers on the moment when children acquire the various consumer competencies (Brée, 1993) Part of kids' learning process happens by means of shopping and consumption experiences, whether observing parents or making their first purchases.This process is presented in Chart 3.

Accompanying parents and observing
Approximately 1 year of age Children go to the supermarket and sit in the cart observing the things happening around them.When nearing the age of 2 years, kids start to make connections between television ads and the products in stores.They also make connections between certain stores and the products they like.

Starting at 2 years old
At this age children start to make demands on their parents.More frequent trips to stores and exposure to television increase the variety of items that children ask for.In this phase, the demands take the form of shouting and crying, etc.In this phase, kids can carry out the entire shopping process, from parents and or 5 years choosing to paying for items.This gives rise to a series of problems making for them related to understanding of the process of exchange in a independent capitalist economy (value of money and process of buying).purchases However, children typically lack the level of mathematical knowledge to really understand what is happening.The first strong impressions also arise regarding the shopping experience, such as problems with service, which can result in negative impressions.
Going to the store Between 5 and 7 In this phase the first experiences happen as independent alone and making years old consumers.The items bought consist of those for their own purchases satisfaction (sweets and soft drinks) and those for the home (bread independently and milk).The process described in Chart 3 occurs usually by means of the different contacts with retail establishments.In general, a child's first such contact is with a supermarket (78%), followed by hypermarkets (9%), shopping centers (7%), drugstores (4%) and others (2%) (McNeal, 1999).Supermarkets also lead the way as the places where kids make their first demands (76%), followed by hypermarkets (11%), toy stores (7%), shopping centers (3%) and others (3%).The products first demanded are breakfast cereals (47%), followed by snack foods (30%), toys (21%) and others (2%) (McNeal, 1999).
McNeal (1999) collected a series of drawings by children elicited with the instruction: "Draw what comes to your mind when you think about going shopping."From studying these pictures, the author identified the relationship of kids with the store environment (difficulty of reaching the highest shelves), their insertion in the world of buying and consuming (happiness demonstrated by being in the retail setting), knowledge of stores (level of detail of a determined store and search for realism), knowledge of the buying process (children appearing handling money at the check-out counter), relationship with employees (salespersons ignoring the child), predilection for certain retailers (appearance of the store name in large letters at the top center of the drawing), identification of the type of store preferred by kids (frequency of appearance of the type of store in the drawings), attention to promotional strategies (representations of advertisements and special offers) and difficulty in writing the names of certain brands (switching of letters or misspelled words).The main products purchased by children between the ages of three and six years are candy and toys, while kids between seven and nine prefer clothes, MP3 players, cellphones and toys (Nickelodeon, 2007).Kids in this latter age group already have a more comprehensive vision of the market, because they know how to save their income, have a notion of what is expensive and cheap and feel independent enough to make their own purchases.Also according to the survey, the products with the greatest chances of being subject to the direct influence of kids are foods aimed at them (sweets/candies and snack foods), food products in general, toys, electronic devices, fast food, soft drinks, clothes, personal hygiene products, computer games and cellphones, while they also exercise a strong influence on shopping destinations (especially malls) and vacation destinations.

METHOD
In this section we present the method used, the phenomenon and group studied and the data collection technique.

SOCIAL REPRESENTATION
Studies of social representations typically focus on a particular social representation phenomenon (Sá, 1998).Further according to the author, that phenomenon can appear in the culture of a particular group, in institutions, communications (interpersonal or mass) and in individual thinking.Such phenomena cannot be captured directly from investigating the group (Sá, 1998).Instead, it is necessary to use other forms of research (e.g., projective techniques).A social representation always pertains to someone (the subject) and involves something (the object).It is not possible to talk of the representation of anything without specifying the subjecta population or social groupthat has that representation.Likewise, there is no way to speak of the representations of a social subject without specifying the objects represented.Put another way, in constructing the topic of study, the researcher must simultaneously choose the subject and object of the representation of interest (SÁ, 1998, pp. 24-25).
The aim of this study is to understand how children, in a certain phase of learning to be consumers, represent the act of shopping.In other words, the objective is to understand how children view the moment shopping, seeking to deepen the knowledge of the stores, brands, products, people and situations contained in the imagination of kids when they think of shopping.Having defined the object of study, it is necessary to identify the subject, which can variously be "groups, populations, social strata or sets, in whose discursive and behavioral manifestations the content and structure of the representation is investigated" (Sá, 1998, p. 25).Our focus is on third-grade students (most of them nine years old) at a private school catering to high-income families.

Who knows
The responses indicate Works with three sets of themes: culture; language and and where?
studying the conditions for communication; and society.Seeks to understand the relations production and circulation of the factors leading to the emergence and diffusion of social of social representations.representations, such as values, models, communication, ideological and historical context, social insertion, etc.

What is
Corresponds to the study Focuses on the supports of representation, i.e., the discourse or known and of processes and states of behavior of subjects, practices, documents, etc. how is it social representations.known?

What are the
Involves concern with the Focuses on the relations that representation have with the real, specific epistemological status of such as research into the relations between natural and aspects of social representations.scientific thinking, the diffusion of knowledge and the what is transformation of one type of knowledge into another, as well known and as the differences between the representation and the object what is the represented in terms of distortions, suppressions and effect? supplementations.
For a study of social representation to be well done, it is necessary to address the three  The decision to use drawings was also due to the pleasure most nine-year-olds take in performing this activity (Cox, 1992).Besides this, the analysis of drawings allows obtaining information on the thoughts and feelings of the artist (Thomas & Silk, 1990;Malchiodi, 1998;Foks-Appelman, 2007).Children draw because they live in a culture where graphic activity is one of the forms of expression, meaning this method is clearly inserted in the context of children, as a normal activity in the context of the target public (Silva, 1998).
This research strategy is of greatest utility with children between the ages of five and nine years.Up to two years of age, kids typically only draw scribbles and stick figures.After that age, they start to draw circles, square, triangles and crosses (Malchiodi, 1998;Gross & Hayne, 1999).Regardless of the part of the world or culture, kids' drawings are basically the same (Foks-Appelman, 2007).Up to three years old, children basically scribble on paper, starting at this age a transition phase to drawings representative of specific things (Leo, 1970).
After this transition, at the age of four or so, kids acquire capacities and start to draw pictures with peculiarities resulting from their own development and the cultural influences of their society (Foks-Appelman, 2007).
Starting at the age of nine years, children feel a need to demonstrate a level of realism in their drawings, which is only attained satisfactorily with training, and the lack of that training gradually discourages them (Cox, 1992).Children will continue to paint and draw even if they have a negative view of the quality of their work, but this self-demand typically influences the result.
The adequacy of the method is also demonstrated by the fact that the relationship between the interviewer (adult researcher) and interviewee (child) is based on a large difference in power.Therefore, the strategy of collecting drawings can be used as a bridge to bring the researcher and child closer together, particularly in focus groups (Yuen, 2004).In the marketing area, some authors, like McNeal & Mindy (1996, 2003) and Lindstrom (2003), have carried out studies with collection of drawings as a way to obtain data.The results found indicate the usefulness of the technique as a suitable methodological tool.
According to Vinter (1999) second focuses on the "process", seeking to identify how the drawing was made.We applied the first approach.
We collected the drawings at a private school attended mainly by children from wealthy families.The monthly tuition at this school is around R$ 1,600.00(July 2010).The teacher responsible for obtaining the drawings told her pupils to draw a picture about "going shopping".Other than this instruction, the kids had total freedom to create their pictures.All told, 36 pictures were obtained from third-graders (most of them nine years old).
Chart 5 presents the levels of development, autonomy and learning of children according to their age.The children in this study are on the verge of pre-adolescence.Their reasoning is starting to construct abstract thoughts and their circle of friends is becoming increasingly important.These observations are relevant in the sense of directing the analysis to understand this moment of transition.Our method of analyzing the drawings was based on the theory of social representation (Sá, 1998) and the works of McNeal (1999;1992) and McNeal & Mindy (1996, 2003).We numbered the drawings from 1 to 36.In light of the main insights presented by McNeal (1999), we sought to identify the existence of categories to serve as a basis for a broader analysis of the pictures.We initially analyzed the first drawing and created categories that could fit all the information contained in that drawing.We then analyzed the second picture and created new categories and renamed some of the first ones.This process continued until the seventh drawing.As of that point we considered that the categories were sufficient to enable an analysis adequate to the objectives of this study.The categories created were: brand of the store; type of store; brands present; sex of the child; self-representation (how the child In the last category we inserted the most relevant comments about each picture.At first, each researcher analyzed each drawing independently.Then we compared our analyses, to resolve any doubts and possible distortions in the analysis.We discussed the few differences until obtaining consensus.The next section presents the main considerations resulting from this analysis.

ANALYSIS OF THE DATA
In the first step of the analysis, we sought to list the types of stores depicted (Table 1) and the brands most often indicated by the kids (Table 2).The brand with the largest number of appearances was Ri Happy, the name of a chain of toy stores.Analysis of the drawings showed that many of the children could not correctly spell the store's name.The brand appeared in the drawings in various forms: Hihappy, Rihappi, Hihappig, Hihapi and Rirepe.Another example of misspelling was when Carrefour became Carrefor.Other brands, such as Extra and Iguatemi, appeared correctly spelled in all the drawings showing them.With respect to the logo of the Ri Happy brand, mention should be made of its simplicity and the corresponding ease with which it was remembered and drawn by the children, as can be seen in Figure 7.In four of these cases, the people depicted appeared to be parents, while in eight cases they were identifiable as store employees.In one case both a mother and sales attendant were shown (Figure 6, drawing 1).The representations presented in Figure 9 indicate that the adult (probably a parent) also is part of the shopping act.When drawings depict moments like school recess or games at public playgrounds, adults typically do not appear.In Figure 9, drawing 4 apparently shows a mother and daughter shopping together, a more common situation than a father and son shopping.The drawing itself does not allow further conclusions.Nevertheless, it is a clear indication that the child has internalized the idea that the act of shopping is something that can be shared with other people and will certainly bring satisfaction.
In virtually all the pictures, the children appeared smiling, happy and engaged in the   We selected three scenes that appear in Drawing 18.In the first, the girl is happy and content eating an ice cream cone; in the second she appears illuminated by the sun of the Ri Happy logo; and in the third she appears with her back turned, peering in the window of Zara, a store selling clothes under that Spanish fashion brand.This shows the perhaps unconscious desire to consume the products of that brand in particular.
Figure 12 shows the only two drawings depicting money in the shopping context.Four drawings depicted pet shops.It is interesting to note that all four of these drawings showed the front of a pet shop with a window behind which animals were being cared for (dogs in the four pictures).
The main results found from analyzing the drawings are presented in Table 3.

Representation of brands
The three leading brands represented were Ri Happy (8 times), Extra (5 times) and Iguatemi (3 times).

Difficulties in spelling brand names
The children often misspelled Ri Happy and Carrefour, but correctly spelled Extra and Iguatemi.This indicates the need for companies focused on selling to children to create brand names that are easy to understand and reproduce correctly.

Drawing of store logos
The logo that was most often reproduced was Ri Happy.This can be explained by the importance of this brand to children, the strong presence of advertising on television and/or the fact the brand is represented by a standout element in children's universe (the sun).

Effort to represent reality
A deeper analysis of the drawings indicates that children tend to erase what they are drawing various times until they achieve the desired quality.Children at this age want to represent scenes faithful to reality, and for this they make a substantial effort in their drawings.

Scarce presence of adults in the drawings (parents and sales staff)
Adults only appeared in a few of the pictures.The children infrequently saw the need to insert adults, either parents or sales staff, in the shopping process.The children surveyed are still in transition from the egocentric phase when the focus is on themselves.

Emotion linked to buying and consuming
The children demonstrated affective sensations and feelings regarding shopping and consuming.Generally the kids represented themselves as happy and smiling.Many times there were signs of desire or love for brands and products.In other cases they appeared happy consuming products (e.g., McDonald's and ice cream).

Role of money in buying and consuming
The children depicted money in only a few of the drawings.This means that money is still not that important for the majority of the children studied.

Fruits, street markets and supermarkets
Only one child drew a street market as a place for buying (fruits).Fruits were not infrequently shown by children in supermarket settings.This indicates a change in buying behavior of the parents of these children.

Tangibilization of services
The children showed an important connection to pet shops and recognized the efforts of this type of shop to show to clients the good treatment given to the animals.

Source: Analysis of the data
The analysis of the data brought a more comprehensive view of how the children studied represent buying, and in some cases consuming the products purchased.In the next section we discuss the results presented here in light of the relevant literature.

DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS
In this section we discuss the findings presented above more thoroughly, seeking to establish a connection with the results found and the literature on the theme.The data collected (see The presence of the supermarket in first place can be explained by the fact that this is the setting where 78% of kids start making requests to their parents to buy products (McNeal, 1999).This is where the process of developing capacities as consumers starts.Among the supermarket brands that were depicted are Extra and Pão de Açúcar.Both brands belong to the CBD Group (Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição), which in 2011 had 1,547 outlets, generating annual revenue of R$ 52 billion, according to the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (ABRAS, 2012).
The presence of toy stores as the second most represented type of establishment is also easily explained by the importance of toys to kids.Besides this, according to Veloso et al.  et al., 2010).Lindstrom (2003) indicates that kids tend to believe more in brands that are advertised on television, which is borne out by the strong presence of Ri Happy in the children's memory.Besides this, the company is present on the Internet and in social media (Facebook, Twitter and Youtube), as can be verified at the company's site (Ri Happy, 2012).Through its advertisements, website postings and social media incursions, the company undertakes many actions to involve kids, such as prize drawings, toy promotions and discounts and extended time payment plans.All these efforts seem to have worked among the children studied here (see Table 2), because the Ri Happy appeared in eight of the drawings, more than any other.
Shopping centers finished in third place as the most often represented buying venues.
Children already are aware of how malls are structured, with the presence of many small stores concentrated in a single large area.The presence of shopping centers among the most recalled establishments can be explained by the importance of this type of setting for the social classes to which the children in this study belong, the upper and upper-middle classes (Segalla & Perez, 2012).First of all, it can be seen that children had difficulty in correctly spelling the company's name.For other brands, such as Extra and Iguatemi, the children managed to spell the names correctly.It can be perceived that companies marketing products to children should adopt names that are easy to spell.Luque & Vila (1995, pp. 153 and 156) state that the age range from seven to twelve years old is when children develop the cognitive and linguistic skills so that they have "an increasingly more ample and correct lexicon" that "multiplies as their knowledge grows and its use becomes increasingly correct." Therefore, it is natural for children to have difficulties remembering and writing more complicated words, at least during this phase of their development.
Fishel ( 2001) analyses the question of children's drawing and indicates that eightand nine-year-olds, although they are in a development stage when they can read, still need visual clues along with the text.She adds that starting at the age of ten, children develop a better ability to understand more complex logos and brands, because of their better capacity to understand the world.Moreover, the sun, moon and stars are some of the first items that kids represent in their pictures (Leo, 1970).The sun is generally represented by a circle with lines radiating from it (Leo, 1970), as in Drawing 18 of Figure 7.The other drawings in Figure 7 are approximations of the Ri Happy logo.In choosing a logo that is already part of kids' imagination, the company certainly facilitated the dissemination of its logo among children.
Figures 7 and 8 also serve as examples of the effort of children to draw logos that approach reality.This effort was also noticeable in various other drawings.According to Cox (1992), this behavior reflects the need of kids to create highly realistic drawings at this age.
When lack of drawing practice makes children feel unable to realistically represent their ideas, they feel they do not have the necessary ability to draw and stop doing it.
The capacity of the children in our study to draw the logos and write the brand names can be credited to the fact that according to Montigneaux (2003), children between seven and eleven years old develop the capacity to synthesize and conceptualized brands.This is a first step in their process of awareness of the existence of brands and their meanings and associations, matters necessary for a brand to build a certain level of value (Aaker, 1996).In this sense, the marketing actions of these companies to solidity brand recall in children exemplify the importance of working with this segment to build valuable brands.ability to place themselves in others' shoes (Martí, 1995).Only between the ages of seven and twelve do children develop the capacity to understand the existence of others and the fact that others may have different opinions (Davidoff, 2001).For this reason, it is to a certain degree understandable that the children did not include adults or other children in their drawings.Up to the age of seven, kids still typically play alone, even when accompanied by other children (Moreno & Cubero, 1995).There is no real interaction between them.But from that age on, children start to form friendships, first in pairs and later with wider groups (Moreno & Cubero, 1995).Therefore, it is possible that the children who draw adults and other children are at a more advanced level of development.
The presence of adults also involves the different roles they can assume: buyer, influencer, user and payer (Sheth, Mittal & Newman, 2001).Children usually depend on their parents to pay for products, so some children already will have this comprehension of the role of parents in the shopping process.Besides this, there is the role of store employees, helping to find items or receiving payment for the products bought.
Figure 10 presents pictures representing the emotions connected to shopping and consuming.In general, the children conveyed the idea that they have a strong emotional connection with the act of buying.This is natural, since the message kids receive through advertising, parents, friends and society in general is a positive vision of buying and consuming.This vision forms the base for today's consumer society, in which pleasure comes from consumption, even if it brings problems like obesity (Schor, 2004) or materialism (Achenreiner, 1997;Goldberg et al., 2003).In this respect, we can mention Figure 4, adapted from McNeal (1999), showing the evolutionary process of children becoming consumers, or the findings of Ward (1974) , 2000).Since children of this age may not yet fully understand all the costs involved in obtaining products (goods and services), their perceived value in the products pictured is higher than that of older children or adults, who have a more developed capacity to understand the nuances of this relationship.
It would be interesting to compare the drawings collected with those on the same theme by children older than twelve, because according to Roedder-John (1999), starting at this age children can be seen as highly developed consumers, entering the final stage of the socialization process.In this final phase, a child acquires the "ability to understand another person's perspective as it relates to the social group to which he (other person) belongs" (Roedder-John, 1999, p. 185).
Linn ( 2004) is highly critical of the promotional efforts of food companies, especially those in the fast food area, of which McDonald's is the leading example.The author indicates that the company's strategies, focused on creating junior consumers and keeping them loyal over the long term, has been a great success but has aggravated problems such as childhood obesity in the United States.These marketing efforts transform a visit to McDonald's into a pleasurable situation.The success of this marketing can be easily perceived in Figure 5 (Drawing 6a).This type of result is associated with the efforts of the fast food chain to create opportunities for positive reinforcement of its customers.The idea of positive reinforcement, or actions to reward a certain expected behavior, is rooted in the theories of operant conditioning (Engel, Blackwell & Miniard, 2000).The effort of McDonald's tries to condition children to visit the establishment repeatedly.This is achieved by offering Happy Meals containing small toys and action figures drawn from popular TV series and movies with child appeal, the playground and drawing material available at the restaurants, the free magazines working.According to Linn (2005, p. 195) ´[The titles in the references are dated 2005a and 2005b.], companies often place the blame for some negative effects of the company-child relationship (such as childhood obesity) on the parents, but she retorts by asking "how can one family, alone, protect their children from an industry spending R$ 15 billion annually to manipulate them?"This is a question that cannot be ignored, by families, academics and marketing professionals.
One of the factors explaining children's level of socialization as consumers is their knowledge of the functioning of the market, including the need to pay for products (Moschis & Moore, 1978;Reece & Kinnear, 1986).In this respect, Figure 9 contains the only examples where money is shown as a factor related to buying.It might be that the question of payment is not yet relevant for these children, because in general payment is made by their parents.But this also can reflect the ability to pay by debit and credit cards.According to data from ABRAS (Casado, 2012;Segalla & Perez, 2012), the payment means used by supermarket customers in 2011 were: cash (36.8%); credit card (33.7%); debit card (16.9%); food coupons received from employers as a fringe benefit (6.2%); post-dated check (3.2%); regular check (1.7%); buying plan with payroll deduction (0.5%) and others (0.7%).It can be noted that in the view of children, who probably cannot distinguish between a credit or debit card, the main means of payment is with a card.In any event, the question of payment was not a concern of most of the children, as revealed by their pictures.

Figure 4
Figure 4 graphically depicts the view of McNeal (1999) on the development of children

A
study carried out by TNS Interscience with Brazilian children and their parents contains interesting results on the relationship of kids with the concepts related to the shopping process.First of all, the results indicate that in the opinion of parents, kids have a strong orientation to pleasure and know their power in negotiating what they want with parents.Approximately 70% of the mothers interviewed said they paid more for the brands desired by their children between the ages of three and nine years, demonstrating the power of kids to influence buying choices.The survey also revealed that children between the ages of three and six years already have some type of income, obtained in return for helping with household tasks (washing the car, making the bed), from small change given to them by their parents, money for school snacks or rewards for good behavior.The average income received by Brazilian children is R$28.60 per month(Nickelodeon, 2007).Of course, not all children receive allowances, either due to financial or ideological reasons (how parents raise their children).In Latin America in general, 48% of kids receive an allowance, while the figure in Brazil is 52%(Nickelodeon, 2007).
questions presented in Chart 4. Therefore, our focus is (1) on what children know about shopping and (2) the relation of the discoveries with the marketing literature.These two aspects are examined in the following sections, Analysis of the Data and Discussion of the Data, respectively.The decision to gather data by analyzing drawings was based on the

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Shopping centers with the presence of stores Source: Research data Of the 36 pictures collected, 13 did not show any particular brand.The picture that presented the largest number of brands was drawn by a child who depicted a store of the Drogaria São Paulo chain.In this drawing, the child indicated four different brands of overthe-counter medicines (Hipoglós, Cataflan, Novalgina and Tylenol).Another child also drew a picture of a Drogaria São Paulo drugstore.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Drogaria São Paulo Source: Research data The similarity between these two drawings indicates the children helped each other or at least one saw what the other was drawing.It is important for the researcher to be present with the teacher in the classroom when data are collected in this setting.The presence of the researcher can help in the correct presentation of the stimulus so that the children correctly understand what is being asked of them.For instance, if the teacher gives examples, such as "You can draw a shopping center or supermarket", this will certainly introduce a certain level of bias in the results.

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. Ri Happy: Original vs. Drawings Source: Research dataThe examples shown in Figure7indicate that the children studied have a good recall of the company's logo, or at least try to draw logos precisely as they remember them.Another example of representation of a logo can be seen in Figure5.This drawing also shows the child's effort to represent the brand (Prada in this case) as realistically as possible.It can be seen that the child erased and redid the drawing several times until attaining a result considered acceptable.

Figure 8 .
Figure 8. Prada: Original vs. Drawing Source: Research data Although the shopping environments depicted by the children are places of intense flow of people, only twelve children drew adult figures.In four of these cases, the people depicted

Figure 9 .
Figure 9. Parent and child consuming together Source: Research data place and the purchases being made.Even the purchase of medicines at a drugstore was depicted positively by means of a smiling sales clerk.The only drawing indicating fear was one that represented a computer/video game store.Analysis of the products depicted in the drawings allows identifying the relationship between the children and the different categories of products and brands.A relationship based on desire to consume, love of products and adoration of brands can be perceived, as in the pictures presented in Figure10.

Figure 10 .
Figure 10.Satisfaction and joy from buying and consuming Source: Research data In Figure 10 it is possible to identify the types of feelings young consumers have for the products and services offered by the companies.It can be clearly perceived that these kids have already internalized preferences for products and brands.Figure 11 brings a drawing where a girl represents her relationship with different brands and products.
Figure 11.Happiness in consuming, buying and window shopping Source: Research data

Figure 12 .
Figure 12.Use of money Source: Research data Drawing 31 stands out for depicting fruits at a street market.The other drawings that showed fruits were in other situations.

Figure
Figure 14.Pet shop Source: Research data

(
2010), toy stores are major television advertisers.Among the toy stores, the standout among the children studied was Ri Happy.This chain has approximately 110 stores and annual sales revenue of R$ 600 million.In 2012, Ri Happy was acquired by the Carlyle Group, which announced the intention to open another 20 stores in 2012.Ri Happy does an efficient job of promotion to children, especially through television (Veloso

Figure 7 ,
Figure7, which shows the various attempts of the children to illustrate the Ri Happy brand, warrants further considerations.First of all, it can be seen that children had difficulty in

Figure 9
Figure 9 brings examples of the few drawings showing adults (parents and store employees).Up to the age of seven, children are predominantly egocentric, impeding their offered and the advertising around the theme of the clown Ronald McDonald.Also with respect to Figure10, Drawing 5 stands out for depicting the love or relationship of positive affectivity of the child for Daslu, an exclusive luxury department store located in São Paulo.In Figure11, Drawing 18 also exemplifies the question of the relationship of affectivity.In this drawing, the child drew herself peering into the window of a Zara store.These situations demonstrate that children are very involved in the question of buying and consuming.To what extent is this relationship between children and companies positive?Certainly some parents will see this relationship as harmful.But for companies it is a sign that the efforts to attract customers early and keep them loyal for many years are BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev. (Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 10, n. 3, Art. 1, p. 1 -33, jul.-sep.2013  www.bbronline.com.br

Figure 12 (
Figure 12 (Drawing 31) and Figure 13 (Drawings 29 and 30) present different placeswhere it is possible to buy fruits.Only Drawing 31 shows this happening in the most traditional environment, the neighborhood street market.The other children who depicted fruits in their drawings did so in the context of two large hypermarket chains, Extra and Carrefour.This indicates a shift in household buying habits.

Figure 14
Figure 14 brings two examples of pictures of pet shops.Both these children drew scenes from outside the shops where it is possible to see inside through the front window.This representation is in line with the suggestions of Lovelock & Wright (2006), who indicate the need for service companies to tangibilize their services so as to instill trust in consumers in the services offered.The initiative of companies such as pet shops in this sense appears to be generating results, because the drawings reveal that the children are aware of what is happening inside the shops.
AccompanyingStarting at 3 or 4 In this phase, children typically no long sit in the shopping cart at parents and years old the supermarket.They have permission to circulate through the choosing aisles and start to recognize certain brands, mainly those of products products with they like.Kids start to receive permission to find products, either to permission keep them occupied or to teach them the rudiments of being consumers.

TABLE 1 -TYPES OF STORES DEPICTED BY THE CHILDREN Type Number of Appearances Type Number of Appearances
used as a starting point to represent various stores, as can be seen in the drawings in Figure5.BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev.(Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 10, n. 3, Art. 1, p. 1 -33, jul.-sep.2013  www.bbronline.com.br