Children and

Advertising

Watch

video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCT7h-jwCWA

Why Advertise to Children???

Children=FUTURE!

Creates brand loyalty at young age

Children yield enormous purchasing power, both directly and indirectly—they are able to persuade and influence parents on what to buy

Children as Consumers:

Average American child watches between 25,000 to 40,000 TV commercials per year

Ages 8-12 (Tweens) spend $30 billion a year

Children up to age 11 spend $18 billion a year

Children under 12 influence parental purchases totaling over $130-670 billion a year

Ads Influence Tobacco UseChildren younger than 8 cognitively and

psychologically defenseless against advertising

$30 million a day (11.2 billion a year) spend on advertising and promotion of tobacco

Approximately 1/3 of all adolescent smoking can be linked to tobacco

advertising and promotions

Ads Influence Alcohol Use$5.7 billion a year spent on

advertising and promoting alcohol

During prime time, only 1 alcohol ad appears every 4 hours

In sports, frequency of alcohol ads increases to 2.4 ads per hour

Children make decisions about alcohol at early age—exposure to beer commercials represents significant risk factor

Ads Influence Drug Abuse$4 billion a year is spent on

prescription drug advertising

Top 10 drug companies made a total profit of $35.9 billion in 2002

Children and teenage get message that prescription drugs cure illness and heal pain

Children are convinced that a drugs exists for ever occasion—including sexual

intercourse

Ads Influence Child ObesityMore than $2,5 billion

a year spent to advertise and promote restaurants

Another $2 billion to promoted food products

Healthy food advertised less than 3% of time

Nearly 20% fast food ads mention toy premium

Rising levels of childhood obesity track an explosion of junk food ads in recent years

Ads Enhance Sexual BehaviorTeenagers’

exposure to sexual content in media is responsible for early onset of sexual intercourse or other sexual activities

Erectile Dysfunction (ED) ads is higher compared to birth control or emergency contraceptive ads

Association between with sexual images and increase in eating disorders with young girls

“Children struggle to make sense of mature sexual content, they are robbed of valuable time for age-appropriate developmental tasks, and they may begin to engage in precocious sexual behavior”—Diane Levin

HOW DO WE FIX THE PROBLEM OF ADVERTISING TO CHILDREN AND CHILD CONSUMERISM?

No One Answer:

RACP says—”educate children to understand the purpose and context of marketing communications”

Juliet Schor says—”Despite expressing doubts about ads, kids remain vulnerable to their persuasive powers”

Possible Solutions:

UK—sponsors children programming so branding still prevalent and increase ads on internet

Pediatricians—familiarize themselves with methods marketers use to target children

What about banning?

Schor say—”if quality and quantity of their

programming declined, children would be likely

to watch more adult media”

“Facts About Marketing to Children”. New American Dream. 14 Apr. 2010. http://www.newdream.org/kids/facts.php

SOURCEShttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCT7h-jwCWA

http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm

“Policy Statement: Children, Adolescents, and Advertising”. Pediatrics. PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 6 December 2006, pp. 2563-2569 (doi:10.1542/peds.2006-2698). 14 Apr. 2010. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/6/2563

Clifford, Stephanie. “Media and Advertising”. The New York Times. 14 February 2010. 14 Apr. 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/media/15kids.html?pagewanted=1“Children as Consumer”. Global Issues: Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All. 8 January 2008. Apr. 14 2010. http://www.globalissues.org/article/237/children-as-consumers

Dan Cook– “What is most troubling is that children’s culture has become virtually indistinguishable from consumer culture over the course of the last century. Children consumers grow up to be more than just adult consumers. They become mothers and fathers, administrative assistants, nurse and realtors, online magazine editors…they become us, who in turn, make more of them.”