North Poll: Childrens' attitude to Christmas
A new poll by Ipsos has found that 83% of parents with a child aged 3 to 6 years old think their child believes in Father Christmas. This drops to just 8% of parents of 11 to 15 year old kids.
But do they call him Father Christmas? Our research has also found a strong North/South divide in the naming of this traditional gift-giver. Those in the North and in Scotland generally refer to him as Santa or Santa Claus, while in London and the South of England he tends to be known as Father Christmas. The difference switches around the Midlands, where the naming is split almost equally.
Source: Ipsos Marketing
Managing Director of Ipsos Marketing, Susan Malcolm, said:
“Christmas is a time full of wonderful traditions including the omnipresent Santa Claus or Father Christmas. While marketing images of him are very common on cards, in stores and on-line, it appears that only the youngest children still believe in him.”
Technical note
Ipsos’s Marketing specialism included their questions on their face to face CAPI (computer assisted personal interviewing) omnibus survey. Interviews were conducted with respondents in their homes.
The omnibus survey interviews a representative sample of c.2,000 GB adults aged 15+ each wave. The study for Father Christmas comprised of a sample of 526 Parents of children aged 0-15. The survey was conducted between the 25th November and 5th December 2011. The data presented are weighted to reflect the national profile and was analysed by the Marketing Sciences team, Ipsos’s specialist data mining team
