Communicating across age-groups: variance in consumer attitudes from tweenagers to adults

Purpose – This paper aims to study whether age impacts the responses to different communication cues in terms of brand recall, attitude toward advertisement, attitude toward brand and purchase intention, and which age groups respond more favorably to a given cue. Design/methodology/approach – An experimental research was conducted across a sample of 1,050 respondents in Delhi to test variance in consumer attitudes across “tweenagers”, teenagers, youth, young adults and adults, when exposed to different communication cues for dummy brands of biscuits and mobile handsets. Findings – Significant variances were observed in consumer attitudes across the five age groups. However, the variation pattern differs across the two product categories. The caricature cue worked well for biscuits across most age groups. For mobile handsets, the picture cue was very effective for the two younger age groups but not as much for others. The product information cue was highly effective for adults. Practical implications – The study provides insights on making communication for brands targeted at more than one age group. If adults are a part of the marketers’ age group, some amount of product information is highly desirable, just as bright pictures/caricatures are necessary for tweenagers. For teenagers, who exhibit high variance vis-a-vis other age groups, communication needs to be customized. For brands where both children and adults are part of the target audience, common appeals can easily be identified, as they had similar responses in all but one case. Originality/value – The framework proposed in this research fills a gap in the existing literature by establishing that age impacts attitude formation in response to communication cues and gives insights for marketing communication.