Introduction
In today’s age that is characterized by digital revolution and internet bubble, various marketing and advertising platforms have permeated every corner of our lives. The marketing and advertisement craze has for a long time taken hold of the diverse age groups of the targeted consumers, even toddlers who barely know what happens around them. Children from all over the world are exposed to tones and tones of these marketing and advertising activities. As a market segment, children represent a huge platform for the advertisers and product promoters. Unlike the early years when advertisements and marketing were mainly targeted to the adult population, over the periods, marketers have tried to get the attention of the uninterested adults through their children.
Children have great influence on the spending decisions of their parents and can exert certain pressure to them in order to get a certain product. However, not everything that is marketed to children is good and many are always harmful and may end up threatening their lives(Turow& McAllister, 2009). My perspective and argument is that marketing to children poses a great danger and is a source of social problem within families and the society at large. Discerning and understanding the persuasive intent of the advertisements and marketing stunts is always difficult to younger children. In this paper, I first examine the harmful nature of these advertisements to young children, and then discuss the various mediations that can be put in place to address the issue giving examples of the same. I conclude the discussion by briefly summarizing the topic discussed and thereby offering recommendations and any further actions that can be put in place in the future to curb the effects of advertising and marketing to young children.
Marketing and Advertising Targeting Children
Right from birth, children are bombarded by various messages promoting and advertising various products, from books for preschoolers to the multicolored branded wares displayed on the supermarkets and toy stores. Children form a prime target for the advertisers and marketers. Economists contend that compared to their peers some three decades ago, children today have at their disposal more income. They also have some significant levels of influence on what their families might add to the lists of their purchases. Spending on children products, from candies to holiday outings including the children is estimated at roughly $40 billion per year(William M. O’Barr, 2008). The prospects for marketers is always there as a result of the nagging power of children that eventually makes parents give in to their demands and buy the specific product demanded by the child. This power is referred to by marketers as the pester power or alternatively the nag factor among children.
It is estimated that in the US alone, the average child views almost three hours of television in a day and at the same time sees more than 40,000 commercial adverts per year. Since the advent of Television advertising in the 1960’s, children have formed a huge part of the target audience by marketers. Today, these marketers have become increasingly sophisticated and employ scientific research into developing ways in which to explore the vulnerability of child psychology in making their messages appeal much better and stronger to this category of audience.
Potential Effects of advertising and Marketing to Children
Children generally are a very tough demographic to market, mainly because the media channels that are used to reach them often lay focus on marketing and advertising products with negative outcomes on children. Dittmann (2004) argued that advertising is harmful to children in its entirety. Dittmann argued that it instead trains children to make choices of products based on the package or its celebrity rather than the actual value that is found in the product being advertised. Marketing mostly targets the emotional part of the target consumers rather than the intellect. Questions have been raised concerning the ability of young children to understand the manipulative intent of some of the advertising and marketing stunts by product promoters. Indeed, children do not have the capacity to fully comprehend and understand the intent of these adverts until much later in life when they are able to differentiate between the distorting natures of the world by advertisements.
When talking about marketing to children, the general outlook to consider is the fast food marketing and entertainment. Over the last decade, advertising in these two sectors has increased tremendously. However, concerns have been raised about the ethical aspect of advertisement in these two sectors and the appeal that they have on children. Among the worst forms of marketing is that on food which have been shown to have greater impact on children’s preference’s and therefore the overall dietary behavior.Scholars agree that advertisement and marketing has adverse effects and increased the risk associated with obesity among children. Since advertisements and marketing gets early in the life of most children, the habits that they develop in regard to unhealthy dietary practices can be linked directly to these food marketing. These habits follow them into adulthood therefore increasing the risk of being overweight and obese, as well as having health problems such as diabetes (WHO, 2014).
Apart from issues to do with children’s health, unethical advertisement and marketing practices have been associated with the rise of children’s affinity to materialism. It has been argued that advertisement directly to children increases the level at which children considers material possessions at a younger age. The effect of this is that it will create a society that is too much concerned with obtaining material wealth rather than creating it. The desire to own certain products by children, especially preteenagers, has been the cause of a decline in decency and having young teens engaging in sexual immorality. Another possible negative effect created as a result of direct advertisement and marketing to children is the fact that it causes much conflict between them and their parents. As a result of the nagging effect, parents might be reluctant to purchase the items requested as a result of the influence from advertisement.
Mitigation from Parents and Other Stakeholders
As much as it is very difficult to shield children from the adverse effects of the messages obtained from the adverts and marketing, I believe that there are still a number of ways that can be used to mitigate from the effects. The market is and will continue to part of the activities that are carried on in the various parts of the world. Parents, lobby groups and the government can still offer tools to the children to assist in coping with the barrage that exists(William M. O’Barr, 2008). Young children get exposed to marketing and advertising at an early age within the home setting. As such, the responsibility of ensuring that these children do not in any way get negatively affected by them lies squarely in the hands of their parents. Furthermore, it is the parents who provide these children with the finances to purchase the desired products. The way by which parents handle the level of exposure to marketing and their children’s nagging ways can highly shape the way in which these young children respond to advertising.
Talking to the young children about the nature of marketing and how advertisements work will ease away the high expectations that they have on a given product. Explaining to them the intent of the advertisement will also clear away their gullibility and create in them a conscious mind towards the adverts and the messages emanating from them. It is also imperative for the parents to encourage their children to think critically on the messages that are sent through the adverts that appear on the televisions, supermarkets and restaurants. Debunking certain messages like those that appear on food stuff would enable them to make informed minds when getting to buy junk food from fast food joints. The effect in turn would be a reduction in the many cases of diabetes and obesity across the country. Furthermore, educating the children on matters to do with nutrition at an early age and teaching them to differentiate between the various types of food as healthy and unhealthy will also enable them to make informed choices (WHO, 2014).
Conclusion
Marketing and advertising targeting children is still persistent in the country and other parts of the world today. The disposable income available to children too has increased over the last decades and today more than ever, the average child can spend more money buying consumer products that range from candies to high end smart phones. With marketing and advertising companies raking in millions from this section of the advertisement, the social ills that this trend is creating cannot be fathomed yet. The dangers have been already seen and there is an urgent need for all the stakeholders to get together and stem out this practice before it is too late. I would propose that the government ban all advertisements that bring detrimental effects to children and such companies heavily penalized.
References
Dittmann, M. (2004).Protecting children from advertising. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.aspx
Turow, J., & McAllister, M. P. (2009). The advertising and consumer culture reader. New York: Routledge.
WHO. (2014). WHO | Protecting children from the harmful effects of food and drink marketing. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/features/2014/uk-food-drink-marketing/en/
William M. O’Barr. (2008). Children and Advertising. Advertising & Society Review, 9(4). doi:10.1353/asr.0.0017
