Analyzing Publicity Aimed at Children under 12

No matter where children are or what they are doing they’ll always find some sort of advertisements. It can be when their casually watching television, reading a magazine or just playing games on their computer. Advertisements are different forms of communication whose purpose is to make their product known to the public. Marketers aren’t partial to certain people; they target anyone and every age group, but recently there has been an upsurge of advertisements aimed towards children. In Eric Schlosser’s article, Kid Kustomers, he demonstrates how child advertising has boomed by the tactics marketers use to get children to want and demand certain companies’ products.

One of the most successful marketers is quoted in the article “Get kids to nag their parents and nag them well”(260). In the initial few sections, he discussed the present time effects of the advertising on youngsters. Through this he contend that, previously, there weren't numerous child based marketing organizations that concentrated exclusively with respect to children and have their own kids' divisions, while now, they have huge amounts of organizations that makes a whole advertising division for the

Nowadays advertising has been a big deal for children, because it can lead children to adopt certain consumer behavior which can result in negative impacts on children’s physical and mental health. Marketing directly to children is a factor in the childhood obesity epidemic, it also encourages eating disorders, previous sexuality, youth violence and family stress and contributes to children’s diminished capability to play creatively. Marketing children is a huge business because they are an easy target. In the following articles I will talk about how there is different types of consumers through advertisements. Advertising can effect children in a positive way but mostly in a negative way at a young age.

Thesis statement: With marketers aiming their advertisements more towards teens every day, researchers are looking into how effective and ethical these advertisements really are.

Advertising is protected by the First Amendment of the United States constitution. Conversely, advertising requires less control from the First Amendment, but requires the majority of control from the government and most importantly, the Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission controls the content and images that are being advertised to consumers that seem to be exaggerated or just plain over the top. With that being said, false advertising is one of the biggest rising issues amongst many companies, celebrities, business, and much more. False advertising is when an individual(s) attempt to betray consumers into believing they are purchasing an absolutely amazing product, when in reality, they are

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.

In 2006, the food industry alone spent more than $1.6 billion on marketing to the youth, $900 million on marketing aimed directly at children younger than the age of 12. (Harris & Graff, 2013). Every year Advertisers’ put their money on the line in support of their efforts of influencing innocent audiences. Is it acceptable for companies to advertise to children? No, because of not only what these companies advertise and promote, but also moreover, the way brainwashing products are forced into children’s heads sparks curiosity to the ethics behind these big-boy companies.

For-profit corporations increasingly tend to infiltrate (overtly and subliminally) our lives. One example of their interference is marketing strategies aimed at children. Adult consumers are like roaches: they tend to become “immune” to classical marketing strategies and advertisements. Today, corporations tend to by-pass this phenomenon by marketing to children instead: money is indirectly extracted from adults by manipulating their children. There are two main reasons why marketing strategies target children: because of the persuasive power children have over their parents, and because they simply are easier to manipulate. At this point we have to ask ourselves: is it ethical to market to children? Should children be protected from being

“The market is interested in getting to that child at the very beginning to begin to shape that’s child’s worldview, to begin to shape that child’s brand preferences.” (Barbaro, Young and Earp) Children are marketer’s main targets because children have young minds and are easy to persuade. Children will be the future consumers of America. They are very vulnerable and are being bombarded with many commercial messages every day. My youngest brother tends to believe everything he watches on TV. One day he came up to my mother and said “Mom you should buy the Charmin toilet paper it’s stronger than all the other toilet papers” he was obviously persuaded by the commercial. Marketers know that a child’s brain is like little a sponge it absorbs everything they hear and see. Marketer’s main goal is to get brand loyalty for life by teaching children that life is about wanting and buying. They want to turn children into lifelong consumers. I do not agree with commercialization of children it does not bring anything positive into their lives. Children commercialization affects the children’s values, mindset, and their future. These advertisements are harming them and some people fail to realize that. Children are being brainwashed with these commercials and being manipulated.

In the past few decades, fast food companies has invested heavily in advertising to children and young adults, in return they’ll become the future of consumers of the next generation prolong business profits. Children between the ages 8 to 12 years old are exposed highest to fast food media marketing and those years are critical stages of development as this forms their eating habits for adulthood. Fast food corporations are utilizing all sources of outlet to advertise to children, from school bus to mobile phone advertisements, wherever media can reach children’s attention. The unmindful marketing tactics fast food industries markets their products to unsophisticated young minds has traumatic lasting affect throughout their adulthood.

Even though marketing has the ability to influence people of all ages, children seem to be the most vulnerable ones. The 2003 Hastings report concluded, “on the evidence up to that date, that children in the UK are exposed to extensive food advertising, and that the diet advertised is considerably less healthy than the diet healthcare experts would recommend” (Halford and Boyland, 2013, p, 182). The case is not much different in other countries also. Reports from North America (Gantz, et al. 2007; Institute of Medicine, 2005) clearly indicated the increased vulnerability of children towards advertising and marketing activities of foods and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers. The majority of the children do not have the maturity to segregate between the good and evil. They are unaware of the traps made by the product manufacturers and service providers. Influenced by the attractive advertisements and the sales promotion activities by the foods and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers, children often compel their parents to purchase these things for them. Parents, on the other hand, are ready to satisfy the needs of their children since many of the parents think that fulfilling the demands of their children might help them to strengthen their relationships with their children. It should be noted that the parent child relationship in the

Ethics in advertising has become critical in today’s scandal ridden ere and it affects the practices of human’s lives. Hence ethics is considered most important feature of advertising. Ethical advertising is constantly beneath the scrutiny of the public and shelled with criticism and has been through many moral ethical issues involved in “fair” advertising. Also, unethical practices may endure to raise question from an ethical standpoint. Advertising can bring either positive results or breed negative influence to its consumers; therefore, it is a vital responsibility of professionals to follow high ethical standards in this industry. There is much of critical concentration on advertising towards children in terms of ethics, whereas it effects to young audience can lead towards certain consumers behaviour, which may result into harmful impact on child’s physical and mental health, one such undesirable consequences of child targeted marketing is obesity - so this subject has become important aspect to choose to get more insights on ethical

Since children are vulnerable, they have been targeted by marketers to make profits. Marketers view children as being strong and powerful consumers, therefore; messages are aimed at children in order to promote various sales.

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

Advertisements can be quite difficult for anyone to fully comprehend. As we get older, we generally gather enough information to know whether or not most of the advertisements that we see on a regular basis should be taken seriously or not. That is not to say, however, that we don’t still get trapped in their webs, it just means that we become a little harder to trap. Although most adults understand the purpose of advertisements, children do not have that luxury. For this very same reason, children are becoming progressively more targeted in company’s ad campaigns, even for ads that should not have anything to do with them. In my own life, for example, I can think of numerous instances where advertisements and the media have affected the purchases of others. Since watching the Consuming Kids video, I have been much more aware of the different tactics that advertisement companies use on the general population in order to get them to continue their spending at an unprecedented rate.