Consuming Kids

Symbolic interactionism is one of the three major theoretical perspectives in sociology. Symbolic interactionism is important in microsociology because interactionists emphasize the subjective meaning of human behaviors, while other theoretical perspectives like functionalism and conflict theory focus on society as a whole on the macrosociology level. Interactionists focus on the micro-lens of society because they base their theory on the image of humans, rather than on their image of society. The central theme of symbolic interactionism is that symbols are culturally derived social objects with shared meanings that are created and maintained through social interaction.

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.

            Today, advertisements is an issue that brainwashes the youth and drains the money from their parent’s pockets. Jonathan Rowe, director of the Tomales Bay Institute, and Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, published an article called, “Corporate Marketing Is Responsible for Childrens’ Materialism” in 2006 through Greenhaven Press. Both writers of the article explain the marketing industry in today’s generation, and influence their readers’ thinking about the horrendous outcomes it has on the youth. Rowe and Ruskin’s thesis states that advertisers are frequently able to avoid parents when promoting their merchandises to the children. In result, corrupt marketers undermines the authority for parents, and conquers the children’s confidentiality. After the launch of televisions and the internet, there has been countless of different types of advertisements. The markets’ advertisements tries to appeal to the youth that include the ages of teens and even younger. Rowe and Ruskin used their article to argue that the government and politicians should be more aware of the marketing these days, and how the marketing industry influence the future. Within their article, there are copious examples and situations that they set out for their readers to better understand their argument and reasons. Rowe and Ruskin effectively employs the rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos to establish

Advertising is nothing new, but with advancements in technology advertising has become much more extreme especially for the younger generation. In the article “Internet Food Marketing Strategies Aimed at Children and Adolescents” discusses all the ways in which advertising is ubiquitous among children:

When talking about our world’s very serious issue of hyper-sexualization of children and teens we cannot discuss all of the main weapons in the arsenal of marketers in today’s contemporary consumer market without mentioning advertisements and commercials as two of the most influential modes for inducing a hyper-sexualized environment in which adolescences mature at an accelerated rate. Hyper-sexualization is defined as the accentuation of sexuality throughout adolescence. It’s very clear that corporate marketing using selective targeting and the influence of social media exposure has created somewhat of a cage used by advertisers to expose their young consumers to material that often times forces them to think in a perspective that is several

Advertising to children has existed for a long time; however what has changed is the amount of advertising and the media through which it comes. Today’s commercials are more sophisticated and pervasive, it is not that the products are good or bad, it is the notion of manipulating children to buy the product. Children are not little adults and their minds are not fully developed, still marketers are playing to their developmental vulnerability. The advertising that children are exposed to today is honed by psychologist and is enhanced by media technologies (Clay, 2000). The issues surround the impact of commercial culture and children’s well-being usually generates plumes of steam and everyone gets excited about it. However there seem to

Advertisers targeting children have been a source of public debate since the 1970s. In the earliest review of marketing to children, Adler (1977) identifies specific risk factors, which include unfair techniques, long-term effects on the values, attitudes, and the behavior of children. More recently, however, the scope of public concern has expanded to additional aspects, such as the obesity epidemic, sexual promiscuity, youth violence, diminishing creativity, and materialism.

Consuming Kids: The Consumption of Childhood shows that strategically marketing to children has returned a huge profit since the deregulation in the United States of America. The amount of money children spends since 1984 to this day, keeps on exponentially increasing. So I believe that it is necessary to have a look at the effects that marketing to children has and will continue to have in society. This paper will address the social problems of marketing to children in society and what can be done to solve them. I will argue that the kids spending has increased at a frightening and concerning rate over the course of the last three decades and how it is directly correlated to how marketers are at the core deceiving our kids to spend their or

It’s no secret that the advertisement in recent years are just disturbing images of objectified children and young people which have vastly increased in popular culture worlds, particularly in popular ads. It has been a trend over the past 2 decades towards the increase use of sexualised images of children and early adolescents in all forms of media, the internet and advertising.

The author Eric Schlosser wrote an article titled “Kid Kustomers”. The main purpose of this article was to inform the readers about how advertisements are aiming towards

According to me, parents’ intervention and responsibility is essential. While advertisements transmit the idea that children need a certain product, parents have to make use of their authority and oppose their child’s nagging. First of all, children will get spoiled if all their wishes are their parents’ command. Secondly, children need to understand and respect the limits imposed by parents. It is crucial that they learn to respect their parents’ lifestyle and values. Finally, not only does the child have to learn to accept the parents “no”: the parents themselves need to learn and have the courage to oppose their child’s irrational wishes. The effectiveness of advertising and marketing on children greatly depends on how parents educate their children. Parents are responsible for protecting children from being marketed to by educating them adequately and establishing clear rules and limits. Unfortunately, it is impossible to completely isolate children from marketing strategies. Thus education has to play the role of a filter against these external ‘inputs’ that try to corrupt the very young.

This essay will be about how advertisers gear their advertisements towards children. It will explain whether or not it is appropriate to do so and what effects it can have on them. Advertisers have an effect on where kids eat, what they wear, what they buy, and where they go for vacations (Poulton). Advertisers will employ celebrities to endorse their products in order to make the product more popular among teens. They will even send text messages to people who sign up about special sales or other advertisements. There are two sides to this argument. One side says it is okay gearing advertisements towards children, and another that says it is not okay. I am on the side that says it is not okay to target children in advertising. The reason being is because it can lead to undisciplined children, money problems, and bad habits in life. On the other side, people agree that targeting children are a good thing. They say this because it teaches them a compromise, promotes creativity, economic benefits, a positive social influence, and educational benefits (Lush, Shannon, Breseman, et al.). In this essay I will find the common grounds between the two sides.

“The consumer embryo begins to develop during the first year of existence. Children begin their consumer journey in infancy, and they certainly deserve consideration as consumers at that time” - James U. McNeal, Youth Marketer. Companies have their sights on kids for many reasons, but mainly because of their immense buying power, the amount of money they spend, totaling more than 40 billion dollars every year. However the main reason for marketers’ interest in kids, is actually the amount of adult spending that kids now directly influence, a colossal 700 billion dollars a year. (Consuming Kids, 2008). Marketers will do anything, ethical or not, to gain access to this money. This generation of children is marketed to in a way that has never been done before. There are so many ways of reaching children that there is a brand in front of their face every moment of every day, as shown in the graphic below, and this can cause physical and psychological repercussions. Children today are constantly bombarded with commercials and ads which cause adverse side effects like obesity and poor self esteem. Due to their lack of development, they are easily manipulated and influenced, and it is therefore immoral and unethical to market to children.

We live in a world of advertising and consumerism. We cannot escape the fact that our world economies are dependent on sellers providing goods and services and the consumer purchasing them. Marketing is an endeavor undergone to benefit an organization and its stakeholders. Although as adults we understand the purpose of advertising is to influence our interest in a product, we can approach such marketing with a skeptical mind. We can be cynical of claims and the different techniques used to entice us. We understand that the advertiser’s ultimate goal is to convince us to purchase a product. What about children? Most people that have a child in their home know that the child as a “consumer” begins to take place at an alarmingly early age. Children are a lucrative consumer group but concerns have been raised recently about the effect of marketing on children due to the epidemic of childhood obesity. Research suggests that targeted advertising to children is unethical and should be greatly restricted because children have not developed the cognitive skills to understand the motives of advertisers, children are motivated to pressure parents into purchasing products, and advertisements promote products that have harmful effects on their health and well-being.

Our generation is surrounded by media and technology more than ever before. TV's, online, billboards, and other forms of media are covered with advertisements. Research shows that commercials portrayed impact our society and that corporations have immensely targeted kids and teens because they are still at the age of development. Vendors have spent 17 billion dollars to investigate the most effective tactic to market products to children. These advertising methods have produced far more negative outcomes than positive outcomes. To relieve the damages caused by the marketers, governments, and industries, parents should work together to find better ways to promote products that will prevent bad influence to its audiences.