Advertisements Exploiting Children
Are current practises of advertising to children exploitative? What restrictions should be placed on advertising to children?
Up until recently, parents had been the intended target audience for advertising efforts aimed for children of young age groups. However it is now the children who have become the main focus. The growth in advertising channels reaching children and the privatisation of children’s media use have resulted in a dramatic increase in advertising directly intended for the eyes and ears of children (Wilcox et al. 2004). It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billion a year on the youth market with more than 40,000 commercials each year. The current practises of advertising to young children definitely exploit their lack of understanding and comprehension of the aim of advertising and promotion of products.
In the early 1970’s, The Federal Communications Commission originally set out to ban all advertising that was aimed at young children, however ended up settling for a more lenient proposal of limiting the amount of time advertisements were aired within children’s programs and put in place certain restrictions to do with advertising practises (Wilcox et al. 2004). Studies have shown that the age range of 8-12 year olds spend $30 billion directly and influence $700 billion on family spending each year. This can be attributed to a relatively high extent to the fact that 46% of 5-14 year olds watch more than 20 hours of television per week with tens of thousands of TV ads shown per year (Neil 2012). Neil (2012) quotes that a child who watches 4 hours of TV per day over a 6 week holiday period would have viewed a total of 649 junk food ads including 404 advertisements for fast foods; 135 advertisements for soft drinks; and 44 for ice cream products. Until quite recently, advertisers viewed children around and under the age group of 8 as off limits when it came to advertising targets. However, industry practises have now developed and
Up until recently, parents had been the intended target audience for advertising efforts aimed for children of young age groups. However it is now the children who have become the main focus. The growth in advertising channels reaching children and the privatisation of children’s media use have resulted in a dramatic increase in advertising directly intended for the eyes and ears of children (Wilcox et al. 2004). It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billion a year on the youth market with more than 40,000 commercials each year. The current practises of advertising to young children definitely exploit their lack of understanding and comprehension of the aim of advertising and promotion of products.
In the early 1970’s, The Federal Communications Commission originally set out to ban all advertising that was aimed at young children, however ended up settling for a more lenient proposal of limiting the amount of time advertisements were aired within children’s programs and put in place certain restrictions to do with advertising practises (Wilcox et al. 2004). Studies have shown that the age range of 8-12 year olds spend $30 billion directly and influence $700 billion on family spending each year. This can be attributed to a relatively high extent to the fact that 46% of 5-14 year olds watch more than 20 hours of television per week with tens of thousands of TV ads shown per year (Neil 2012). Neil (2012) quotes that a child who watches 4 hours of TV per day over a 6 week holiday period would have viewed a total of 649 junk food ads including 404 advertisements for fast foods; 135 advertisements for soft drinks; and 44 for ice cream products. Until quite recently, advertisers viewed children around and under the age group of 8 as off limits when it came to advertising targets. However, industry practises have now developed and