Preview

The Truth Behind Advertisements Targeting Children Essay Example

Best Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4471 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Truth Behind Advertisements Targeting Children Essay Example
The Truth Behind Advertisements Targeting Children
A Research Essay Written By: xxxxxx The Truth Behind Advertisements Targeting Children

One of the largest and most profitable industries in the world is the advertising industry. Last year the advertising industry spent around 150 billion dollars in the U.S. alone (“TNS Media Intelligence”). That’s enough money to give every person on the planet 20 dollars and then have enough left over to buy 150,000 Porsche Carrera’s. Advertising consumes all facets of the media and affects everyone young and old. It’s near impossible to go anywhere today without seeing some sort of ad, whether it’s a billboard for Victoria Secret, or a television ad for Corn Flakes. Though there are multitudes of aspects to explore in advertising, one of the most debated is advertising’s effects on children, especially children younger than twelve. Whether arguing for, or against advertisements targeting children, it’s important to understand and investigate all the aspects of marketing products specifically to young children: the ethics, the effects on mental and physical health, the economic value of children and how it’s affected by advertising as well as the responsibilities parents have in monitoring their children and what they watch. Both sides of the issue have strong fact-based arguments to support their position. Should children be specifically targeted by advertising companies? There really is no right or wrong answer to this question; it’s a matter of taking the facts, weighing out the pros and cons and then reaching a personal conclusion. That being said, children are affected by advertising, whether it be specifically directed and fabricated for them or indirectly, from other advertising. This issue has been debated for decades and is still debated today. This topic is far from one-sided, and far from over.
The ad industry’s methods of administering advertisements directed at young children

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Calvert, S. L. (2008). Children as consumers: Advertising and marketing. The Future of Children, 18(1), 205-234. doi:10.1353/foc.0.0001…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    I have first-hand experience with advertising impacting my views and opinions. Jean Kilbourne, in Killing Us Softly IV, speaks about the influence that advertising has over people. According to Kilbourne, everyone feels equally unaffected by advertisements, when in reality, their effect is quick, cumulative, and subconscious (Killing Us Softly IV). This illustrates that advertisements sell more than just a tangible product: they sell ideas that we do not even realize we are absorbing. This understanding makes me think to how advertising affects children. When I was a child, I used to watch commercials with awe, falling into their trap of…

    • 2294 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Eric Schlosser’s article, Kid Kustomers, he demonstrates how child advertising has developed by the tactics marketers use to get children to want and demand certain companies’ products. The big boom in child advertisement began in the 1980’s. Working class parents had to spend more time at work, so this meant less time at home with their children. They made up for for the loss of family time by spending more money on their children. According to Schlosser, many industries started to pick up on parents’ excessive money spending on their kids, so they decided to focus more of their advertising on children. Findings such as the above mentioned can be supported just by reading through endless numbers of marketing journals and articles that are dedicated to focusing advertising towards children.…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Advertising is everywhere we go; we see and hear advertising in magazines, newspapers, billboards, television, radio, internet, and even the classrooms. In the article, Kilbourne describes how advertising supports almost every communication, not by selling products to us but by selling us to the products’ manufacturers. Advertisers compete against each other for the opportunity to deliver their product to the consumers thru the media and companies are investing excessive amounts of money on psychological research in search of specific words and images necessary to capture the attention and money of consumers.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    M&a Law

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Advertising has greater impact to children than usual because it is easily perceived as a lesser influence by parents and others in the older generation (Shah, 2010).…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Advertising is a $125 billion industry that attracts the attention of the public. Advertising is used as a tool of persuasion in television, magazines, radio, billboards, and in-store displays. The incredible amount of money, artistic ability, and intellectual energy spent on advertisements helps us understand the great power of the media and the advertiser’s ability to control their viewers.…

    • 1272 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kid Kustomer

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages

    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.…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Business Ethics

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages

    I think that autonomy is a fundamental value, especially for children as they learn and grow, so special sensitivity regarding advertising to children is desperately needed. Advertisements that are motivated by values are those that will consider the kind of values that the product creates. So advertisements may instill in their target audiences positive or negative elements. Therefore, advertisement targeting children does require special sensitivity because it may become a problem if it violates their right to privacy, honesty and autonomy. However, if they appeal to the children in the right way, with things that grab their attention and cause interest in a way that does not violate their autonomy, they will have succeeded in selling their product because in return, children will sell the product to their parents in order to get them to buy it.…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The birth and growth of the media age has paved the way for numerous outlets for advertising. Millions of people reading magazines, watching TV, listening to the radio and surfing the web are constantly bombarded with ads for different products or services. Although the creation of media has given us great power and knowledge, we see its consequences in our personal lives and in society as a whole. Advertising has negatively affected society through its use of false claims and manipulation, influencing the next generation of consumers.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Since its modern-day origins to the early twentieth century, advertising has come a long way. All throughout history, advertising has been utilized. Sometimes the method used was as simple as a for sale sign, via word of mouth, and even in newspapers. In general, most methods of advertising were also directed at the general population, and not at any specific target group. Nowadays, advertising is all around us. Everyone is exposed to some form of media advertising: radio stations, magazines, product packaging, and even embedded within the World Wide Web. Advertisements have upgraded from word of mouth, to a vastly more efficient method to increase sales. What is the harm in that? Well, corporations and companies tend to focus on certain age groups when advertising products or services. One of the most highly targeted population groups that corporations and advertising agencies focus on is children. Thus, the issue at hand is the well-being of our children.…

    • 1233 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Do advertisements really influence America’s youth? According to many pediatricians, “Research has shown that young children – younger than 8 years old – are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising” (“Children, Adolescents, and Advertising,” 2006). Children see advertisements of different things almost everywhere they go. Two types of advertisements that kids may come in contact with on a daily basis are fast food advertisements and advertisements that encourage them to look or behave a certain way. In today’s society, with the help of TV commercials, magazine ads, and the internet, children are constantly in the world of advertisements (“Children, Adolescents, and Advertising,” 2006). This is an issue that needs to…

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ad analysis

    • 5690 Words
    • 23 Pages

    Advertisements comprise thirty percent of the material aired on television, and many of us will view more than two million commercials in our lifetimes. The A. C. Nielson Company reports that, by the age of sixty-five, the average U.S. citizen will have spent nine years of his or her life watching television—twenty-eight hours a week, two months a year. And in one year, the average youth will spend nearly twice as many hours in front of the tube (fifteen hundred hours) as he or she spends at school (nine hundred hours).[1] We may turn the box off eventually, but the advertisements remain. We are surrounded by them: they cover billboards, cereal boxes, food wrappers, bathroom stalls, tee shirts, and tennis shoes. They seep into our music, our newscasts, and our conversations. We recognize corporate logos and hum jingles ("Ba Da Ba Ba Ba"). In short, advertisements inform every aspect of our lives. Yet we often give them very little thought. We may make aesthetic judgments about them (e.g., "That commercial was funny" or "That commercial was stupid") or view them as innocent means to purchasing ends, but we rarely acknowledge them as messages that require critical attention.…

    • 5690 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Advertising isn’t always just selling a product, but sometimes selling values. Advertisers, now more than ever, use more implicit means to make you feel a certain loyalty or comfort towards their companies. Advertisements are virtually everywhere, from computers to television and even in schools, it’s hard to escape their hold. Children are even more vulnerable to these advertisements because they don’t understand the persuasive ideas brought about in ads. An example of this is a Barbie advertisement in a weekly Toys R Us ad. The advertisers’ main goal is to make money off of our youth and to take advantage of their innocence while seeming to be a friend.…

    • 358 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    For years, advertisers have targeted America’s youth, taking advantage of popular culture such as TV, media, videogames, and music videos, along with their psychology and instincts. They have amassed effective strategies to influence teens and children alike, resulting in them buying their products. However these millions of ads are taking their toll on our children’s health, behavior and much more. Advertising will only increase, already children see 40,000 television commercials a year. For Unless the population is educated on advertising, the problem will only increase.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    For the longest time now, advertising has played a huge role in how we identify ourselves in the United States with the American culture, and how others identify themselves with all the cultures of the rest of the world as well. It guides us in making everyday decisions, such as what items we definitely need to invest our money on, how to dress in-vogue, and what mindset we should have to prosper the most. Although advertising does help make life easier for most, at the same time it has negative affects on the people of society as well. Advertisement discreetly manipulates the beliefs, morals, and values of our culture, and it does so in a way that most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happened. In order to reach our main goal of prospering as a nation, we need to become more aware of the damage that has already been caused by this advertising and prevent it from negatively affecting us even further.…

    • 1589 Words
    • 46 Pages
    Powerful Essays