title: Measuring Food Brand Awareness in Australian Children: Development and Validation of a New Instrument.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Children's exposure to food marketing is one environmental determinant of childhood obesity. Measuring the extent to which children are aware of food brands may be one way to estimate relative prior exposures to food marketing. This study aimed to develop and validate an Australian Brand Awareness Instrument (ABAI) to estimate children's food brand awareness.
  
  
  METHODS
  The ABAI incorporated 30 flashcards depicting food/drink logos and their corresponding products. An abbreviated version was also created using 12 flashcards (ABAI-a). The ABAI was presented to 60 primary school aged children (7-11 yrs) attending two Australian after-school centres. A week later, the full-version was repeated on approximately half the sample (n=27) and the abbreviated-version was presented to the remaining half (n=30). The test-retest reliability of the ABAI was analysed using Intra-class correlation coefficients. The concordance of the ABAI-a and full-version was assessed using Bland-Altman plots. The 'nomological' validity of the full tool was investigated by comparing children's brand awareness with food marketing-related variables (e.g. television habits, intake of heavily promoted foods).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Brand awareness increased with age (p<0.01) but was not significantly correlated with other variables. Bland-Altman analyses showed good agreement between the ABAI and ABAI-a. Reliability analyses revealed excellent agreement between the two administrations of the full-ABAI.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The ABAI was able to differentiate children's varying levels of brand awareness. It was shown to be a valid and reliable tool and may allow quantification of brand awareness as a proxy measure for children's prior food marketing exposure.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Society, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: Early Start Research Institute, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Bridget
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Boyland
authors.affiliation: Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Adrian E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Bauman
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005502:Food / Q000191:economics*; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D040541:Marketing; D057766:Policy; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires