Age-Appropriate Advertising

Advertisements are everywhere. They are a major part of modern day society. Whether it be a television commercial, an internet banner, or a billboard, advertisements influence people of all ages, but they affect a certain age group much more than others. Children ranging from toddlers to teenagers are exposed to thousands upon thousands of advertisements each year. Some of these advertisements are damaging to children, while others are a positive influence. Advertisements can either be used as a tool or a weapon. Food advertisements and manipulation strategies are both positive and negative, and how companies use them decides whether or not marketing to children is ethical.

Will Rogers once said, “Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need.” Targeting youth by advertisements happens in all forms and advertising companies are the only ones getting the profit from it. Advertising affects the life of youths lives in many negative ways because it has skyrocketed health risks, lowers self-esteem and increases money spent by youth.

Teenagers have a “... need for independence, rebellion, and personal control,” (Source F). Marketers can use this in many ways. They can use it to their economical advantage by manipulating teenagers into buying their goods. But, PSA’s can really show teenagers the facts and promote good morals. Recent studies look into how advertisements affect adolescents, “... these studies show that social marketing has successfully changed health behavior such as smoking, physical activity, and condom use, as well as behavioral mediators such as knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs related to these behaviors,” (Source F). While it's true that it's easy for teenagers to be manipulated by commercials, a lot of other commercials can be a strong influence in building better lives for them. If people could focus on the pros rather then the cons, then they could see the big picture of marketing to

Advertising can lead to teens and kids making poor choices. 200 Billion dollars are pulled from the average teenage pocket every year from items that are advertised. For example 1 and every 3 people get some kind of diabetes before the age of 20 due to unhealthy eating. Almost every fast food restaurant has some kind of advertisement to lure people. Over 90% of fast food is unhealthy and can cause things such as cancer or diabetes. That's why I think Advertising can lead to kids and teens making poor choices.

Advertisements are leading teens to have heart disease, asthma, high blood pressure, obesity, cancer and type two diabetes. These advertisements are giving the target audience, children, are having effects on their lives. Advertising is playing a horrible effect on the lives of youth because it is diminishing the health of our children, it can also make children need to have things to have a high social status. Also, the advertisements make children want to use their parent's money to buy what they want that is on television, but all they are doing is paying the people who are creating the advertisements.

Children tend to absorb the contents with a sense of judgment. This is because their curiosity sometimes leads to terrible consequences, in this case, the addiction to alcohol. “A national study … concluded that greater exposure to alcohol advertising contributes to an increase in drinking among underage youth. Specifically, for each additional ad a young person saw … he or she drank 1% more. For each additional dollar per capita spent on alcohol advertising in a local market … young people drank 3% more” (Alcohol Advertising and Youth). Therefore, the commercials do have a great impact to the number of drinking adolescents, since the number of underage alcohol consumption rises as advertisement rates rise. If such commercials continue to display on the media without any types of appropriate-content filters, the number of teenage alcoholics will continue to rise as years pass by. As a result, we must greatly reduce the number of commercials referring to alcohol products, to minimize the possibility to create future drinkers under the legal age.

Childhood obesity is a significant concern among adolescents today. In the article, “The Impact of Food Advertising on Childhood Obesity” published by the American Psychological Association, expressed the effects of advertising on youth. The American Psychological Association explained, “Almost three out of every four foods advertised to children falls into the unhealthy categories that contribute to the obesity epidemic”. Children ranging from ages, eight to eighteen, consume on average about 45 hours of various types of media per week. The link between childhood obesity and advertisement

Over half of eight to 12 year olds will spend their own money. This essay is about how advertisers target youth so they feel pressured to buy certain products. The three roles that advertisers play in the lives of youth are that advertisers overwhelm youth with ads, design ads to target youth so they nag their parents, and to target youth so they pressure others.

From the glossy pages of a magazine to the intensity of product placement in films and TV, advertisements targeted at children are often questioned on whether or not they are ethical. Disparities arise because people are unsure if it is more important to prioritize the success of businesses or to take into account the effects the advertisements may have on children. A detailed analysis of both arguments is necessary to determine whether or not children's advertising should be regulated.

A major problem with children being exposed to advertising is an increase in obesity. According to the article, Facts About Marketing to Children, Rising levels of childhood obesity is the effect of fast food and junk food ads. When kids see a Mcdonald's commercial, they are intrigued because of their happy, friendly clown mascot. When they see the mascot they think that

An average child is exposed to more than 40,000 ads a year, and 20,000 of those ads are supporting junk food and fast food. Advertisers and marketers spend about 100 billion dollars trying to influence the youth and their decisions. The youth are being targeted without even knowing, due to the excessive amount of ads seen everyday and everywhere. Kids are being brainwashed by them because the advertisers use different tactics to draw the youth in. When kids are watching and seeing ads, they sometimes don’t even realize that the ads are influencing them. The advertising around kids have doubled since the last century, the success is unreal for the marketers. The ads affect everyone and their daily life style, but is it leading to the kids and

From a very young age, Americans unknowingly fall prey to advertising. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that “The average young person views more than three thousand ads per day on television, on the internet, on billboards, and in magazines.” (2006) Advertisements alcohol and tobacco use and the consumption of unhealthy foods are leading American youth to make harmful, misguided choices that are detrimental to their health.

How would you feel if you knew fast food corporations were directing their ads towards your kids? During this presentation, we will be going over how the fast food industry only cares about your money and not your health. These actions are affecting our society as a whole as well as other countries and how refusing to buy fast food will affect the economy. All of these actions will affect the U.S as a whole. I will talk about how obesity effects the youth, society, and how it affects the economy.​

Ads can diminish children's self esteem and body image as they compare themselves to the models they see in the ads, cause conflicts in a family through arguments started by a denial of a product the child saw advertised, and financial issues from excessive spending on the advertised items. Finally, advertisements can give the children biased and incorrect ideas about how they are supposed to act as a girl or boy by introducing sexist ideas. Ads have the power to shape the lives of the kids in our next generation. Advertisements can change how kids think and how they respect themselves and treat others. Don’t let kids be consciously or unconsciously influenced and help be the change for the better. Avoid programs with advertisements. Watch only programs that don’t have ads such as movies or Netflix. Inform your family and friends about how ads are harming us so they can do the

There are some ads that can influence a child 's buying habit while others can hammer in trends into a child, influence certain actions or habits. Some commercials can become problematic for children. For instance, the Pakistan Observer mentions that a television commercial of a “biscuit manufacturing company shows a youth jumping off an apartment to force his girlfriend to marry him” (Pakistan Observer). Imagine if a child or adolescent were exposed to this commercial on a daily basis. This type of ad can have a