Effects Of Advertising On Teenagers

In today’s media obsessed society, youth is greatly influenced by advertising. For example, Marketing to kids gets more savvy with technologies is how they ,“Online games like Webkinz show ads on the site draw youth to buy the product or just to look at it for ‘money’”. Because this tactic works, the ads are an excellent at make youth to talk about this and be annoyed. In Facts about Marketing to Children, it says, “Children pack 8.5 hours of media a day’, is what the Facts about Marketing to Children says.” Because children are on the media so much it is easy for marketers to advertise and get children to buy the product. “ Anne Lappe says that when her daughter grows up, and goes to a movie, the character might have a soda or fast food.”

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.

Most advertisements aimed at teenagers are effective, but usually are not ethical. Most marketers have many ways of gathering information on teenagers spending habits and what is most important to teens. With this information they’re able to create advertisements that will appeal to most teens and create profit. Many people argue that some or most of these ads aren’t ethical because they will create a problem or insecurity and then give the solution to that problem in the form of their product.

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

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

Advertisements also affect a child's own identity because "advertising manipulates [children] through their insecurities, working to define normality for them" (Source C). Children, especially pre-teens and teenagers, are essentially going through a multitude of crises with the most prominent one being and identity crisis. Figuring out who one is, is a vital step towards adulthood and independence, and with advertisements altering children's thoughts and ideas, their futures are not looking as bright. Without a sense of self, humans are nothing. They are simply mindless creatures just trying to survive. They have no intellectual independence and therefore, inventions, ideas, and discoveries will begin to slowly diminish. But, the manipulative ways of advertising can in facts be positive. With 15,312 promotions and public service announcements seen by children and teens annually (Source A), the world has a high chance of new generations of innovators and environmental heroes. If advertisements can, in a sense, manipulate children into doing positive things and taking actions, then yes, advertising to children is an extremely clever thing to do, and will benefit not only the viewers, but the world in

In the past years advertising through media has significantly impacted the marketing industry. Industries have successfully accomplished impacting children through media by simply incorporating the four p’s of marketing, product, place, promotion, and price according to The American Marketing Association (EBSCO1). Nevertheless, companies thoroughly research information to learn what comes across as appealing to children. For example, companies advertising media incorporated attention grabbers including flashing banner ads, contests, sweepstakes, google sponsored links that matches the individual’s search history, tv commercials, are sneakily capturing the youth’s attention (Media). Cartoon network and Nickelodeon devote all their time entertaining and

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.

The first role that advertisers play in the lives of youth is that advertisers overwhelm youth with lots of ads so youth feel pressured to buy things. First of all in the article “$211 Billion and So Much to Buy: American Youths,the New Big Spenders” it states in paragraph five that, “Tweens… have more consistent available access to vast amount of information then their parents or grandparents could have imagined their youth.” And in the article “Thanks to Ads, Kids Won’t Take No,No,No.No,No For an Answer” it states in paragraph three that, “ As unprecedented levels of advertising and marketing aimed at children feel intense pressure to

Isis used the internet to target three teenage girls from Britain, who may have traveled to Syria to join. Isis is using children and young adults in untruthful advertisement in order to draw other children into their group especially young girls. In one posted video, it shows young boys dressed in military attire and Isis bandanas learning hand-to-hand combat. These young boys are known as the “Cubs of the Caliphate” (http://wgno.com).

It would seem this question has been on the tips of our tongues for some time, and still we've yet to come to a definitive answer. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to illustrate a portrait of American advertising and the harmful affects it has on our youth.

Ads affect teens in many ways, it makes them independent buyers, it gives them self-esteem problems maybe even social anxiety trying to fit in uniquely and what not. Ads just say what teens want to hear and honestly, this could affect them emotionally and physiologically. They give them motivation to go out and buy their product. Let’s not forget when a teenager wants a product but their parents won’t buy it for them, the ads could make teens more secretive such as trying to buy something that costs a lot of money just to loom cool, but, didn’t ask for permission, or didn’t want anyone to know how much it cost of where they got it from. Teenagers want to look like the gorgeous models they’ve seen on television. Even boys want to look nice and skinny with all their muscles showing. Teens will change eating habits or stop eating to look The Incredible Hulk” and not realizing that everything that’s seen on tv is typically edited or fake. In the long run Ads will say anything to get teens to buy their products. Ads will say that their product will change

Marketing to children is not a new phenomenon; however, there have been many ethical debates on its rightness; is advertising to children a gentle persuasion of the innocent or a sinister threat to our society? There’s too much as stake if we remain silent and simply assume that marketing companies have our children’s best interests at heart; the truth is they don’t. This paper will explore to implications of marketing to children and the overall effects it has on our society. I will argue that advertising to children is a social problem. In the first part of my paper I will discuss why advertising to children is ethically wrong, I will then discuss what has changed; this will be followed by a discussion as to why it is a social problem and finally, I will conclude my paper by discussing what should be done to change it. Please note this paper is written in the first person as I have children and I have a vested interest in this topic.

We all have that one person that we look up to, admire, and strive to be like; especially as teenagers! But how does that strengthen advertising? Some sports companies have realized that featuring professional athletes who are also positive role models has significantly helped the sales of their sports equipment. Why? As teenagers see these advertisements containing some of their favorite (and well known) athletes wearing certain brands and using certain products, they become more likely to purchase those items. In the article, “Under Armor Wants to Dress Athletic Young Women” by Elizabeth Olson additionally shows specific athletes chosen to help advertise merchandise to younger athletes by stating, “…the professional soccer player Lauren Cheney;

Advertising today focuses on specific targeted demographic groups. There is a direct focus on marketing products to young consumers. This age group sees the commercials, but does not really understand the directed message. This can have an adverse effect on the way children interpret and understand the message being presented to them. 'The average American child sees more than 40,000 commercials a year, and advertisers spend more than $12 billion annually marketing to them?double the amount of 10 years ago.' (APA-1) Children watching television are exposed to every channel running commercials that are sending out a mature message to an immature audience. There needs to be something done to