Children Are Vulnerable to Advertising

Controversial television advertising that is marketed toward children and teenagers requires regulation to protect them against harmful influences. Unhealthy habits, materialism, and obesity are just a few of the ways that advertising influences negatively affect them. Children are especially vulnerable targets of advertising, so it is important that parents as well as the government work together to regulate what is seen and heard in the daily lives of children.

How do children view the advertising messages and influences that they see everyday? The earlier the child is exposed to advertising the more likely they are to be influenced by it. Research shows that children under the age of eight are unable to critically comprehend televised advertising messages and are prone to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate and unbiased. "Because younger children do not understand persuasive intent in advertising, they are easy targets for commercial persuasion," said psychologist Brian Wilcox, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center on Children, Families and the Law at the University of Nebraska and chair of the task force.

It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billon per year on advertising messages aimed at the youth market. Additionally, the average child watches more than 40,000 television commercials per year. There is a very aggressive approach that is being taken by corporations to ensure that their products are the ones that children want to buy. How exactly does corporate advertising "hook" children? First, the advertising makes the child believe that the product will make them happy because the child on the commercial is smiling and happy while using or consuming the product. Second, they strongly infer that all the other children are doing the activity or have the product. This marketing tactic gives a feeling of inferiority to any child who does not have or enjoy these products. Third, they bombard children with the images of their product in order to reinforce its popularity and brand recognition. This is particularly true of Disney, one of four or five multinational corporations that now control nearly all our media. Disney constantly intensifies its images by repeating them in movies, videos, television programs and commercials, books, clothing, toys and other products that children use.

Fourth, corporate executives have come up with the idea of collecting and buying items in a series. The parent who purchases an American girl doll or Beanie Baby will, of course, be asked to buy another. The system is designed to make children want to buy as many as possible. The advertisers know that children influence a large part of the family budget. Just how much impact do children have on their parents' purchases?

Researchers estimate that about $600 billion of adult spending is now "influenced" by children. If you look at the kids' channels, you will see adult products being advertised. Hotels, automobiles, technology--kids weigh in on a wide range of parental purchases. Children are empowered in historical new ways in the decision-making from which snacks to buy to which SUV their parents purchase. What brought about such a big change? In part it is because most parents are not around during the day. Parents are working and perhaps single, they trade material objects for togetherness. With cheaper technology and more money coming in, parents opt for giving in and buying more of what their children are asking for. Every generation believes its sons and daughters should have a larger life than the one before. More opportunities, more experiences, more stuff.
Are the materialistic changes in the family caused by the advertising or is the advertising just a result of families being more materialistic? With advertising agencies aiming at younger and younger children, it is quite possible to assume that the corporations and advertisers would not mind helping foster consumerism in the next generation. The market aimed at children has skyrocketed in recent years, and many new products, particularly those targeting the 8-to-12-year-olds whom marketers call tweens, appeal to their sense of teen fashion and image consciousness. The advertiser's dream is a child who barely needs childhood. In most advertising, children see image upon irresistible image of themselves as competent sophisticates wise to the ways of the world. While their parents and teachers appear as weaklings, narcissists, and dolts. Without the luxury of a protected childhood, today's advertising influenced children come immediately into the noisy presence of the media. The advertising is no doubt shaping them, but their sophistication is misleading. Deprived of the space to grow into themselves without being told what that should be, the media child unthinkingly embraces the dominant cultural gestures of teen coolness and detachment. This new kind of sophistication, speaks of a child's diminished expectations and conformity rather than worldliness and self-knowledge.

Besides a false sense of sophistication, advertising influences children to develop a number of unhealthy habits. The most prevalent problem has become unhealthy eating habits and obesity. Many analysts attribute children's unhealthy eating habits to this barrage of junk food advertisements. The most common products marketed to children are sugared cereals, candies, sweets, sodas and snack foods. Such advertising of unhealthy food products to young children contributes to poor nutritional habits that may last a lifetime and be a variable in the current epidemic of obesity among kids. More parents are becoming aware of the problematic link between the advertising and the poor eating habits of children. With the food companies who make these snacks for children coming under increasing criticism from legislators, advocacy groups and parents food companies have often expressed the view that self regulation is the most effective way to handle the situation.The chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, Deborah Platt Majoras, said that having the government ban the marketing of certain types of foods was neither wise nor viable. "Under the right circumstances, industry-generated action can address problems more quickly, creatively and flexibly than government regulation".

The problem then becomes are the parents or the legislators responsible for regulating what children see in advertising? There have been numerous suggestions as to what should be done to protect children such as training teachers in media literacy, supporting technology that will allow viewers to skip over commercials and establishing ad-free zones in places such as schools, churches and other public places.What should parents do? Do not hesitate to take a restrictive stance toward your children's exposure to consumer culture. You don't have to let them watch television. You don't have to let them have products just because they say everyone else does. You have to have the courage to go against the culture.

Children have a new role in the decision-making for purchases in the family, and as such these little consumers are the targets of huge amounts of advertising aimed at influencing their buying habits. The negative effects of advertising can be seen in the development of obesity, materialism and many other unhealthy habits among children recently. Advertising to children is a multi-billion dollar market that should have restrictions placed on it by corporations, legislature and parents to ensure that the health and well-being of the children is protected.

Kunkel, D., Wilcox, B., Palmer, E., Cantor, J., Dowrick, P., Linn, S.-Television advertising leads to unhealthy habits in children.-APA Online Web site: http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads.html