Children and Advertising

During this week’s session I was fortunate to experiment with the Imovie app on an Ipad. This opened my eyes to the potential of creating an advert using increasingly accessible technology. I was able to draw upon features witnessed in current advertisements such as persuasive voice overs, suspense and humour, to create an effective advert for a ‘Woody’ toy.

My stance on children and advertising is that I worry whether children such as my 10 year old sister are unknowingly being manipulated by the adverts that they are exposed to. My main concern is that she is being tainted to view the world in a constantly consumer-driven way. I shall now explore this concept further in terms of how advertising influences children’s perceptions of themselves, whether children should be viewed as consumers, and the extent that children and teachers should be educated on the ways of advertising.

With the intention of an advert being to influence consumer’s perceptions of a brand, thereby making it more desirable, children are influenced, sometimes unknowingly to want or feel that they ‘need’ a certain product in order to confirm their identity (Gunter, Oates and Blades, 2005).  Adverts also differ greatly depending on which gender they are specifically appealing to and this has been shown to affect the way in which children believe they should act. This is most prevalent in adverts for toys whereas food is more commonly aimed at both genders.

From businesses’ point of view, children are a potential market group that is perhaps too good to be missed. However, the issue of whether children should in fact be viewed as consumers is a particularly controversial one (Banaji, 2010). Brands have undoubtedly exploited the influence of ‘pester power’ which recognises that children are active consumers, spending their own or parents money, yet it could be said that this is unethical on young minds who lack the conceptual understanding or maturity to evaluate commercial messages rationally (Leiss et al., 1990. p365). In this way, children are passive while advertisers channel their thinking habits and bypass their conscious awareness so that they believe adverts to tell the truth (Pachard, 1957).  In particular, the boundaries between information, entertainment and advertisement are increasingly blurred, in order to mask media’s real intent, which through cross selling, licensed merchandising and product placement is really to sell its own brand (Kenway & Bullen, 2001). Perhaps in response to this, legislation has been in place since 2007 to prevent use of cartoon characters on food TV adverts for foods deemed as ‘junk food’. This may have caused a shift in advertisers attention from the child to the parent, as adverts have begun to target adults.

While some children do demonstrate an awareness of adverts power to persuade, this is not always the case (Raising Children Network, 2011). This suggests a need for children to be educated on the features and true purpose of advertising, yet in order for this to be effective teachers must have a strong understanding themselves. They may then equip children to interpret, make informed decisions, and become critical readers and viewers of adverts. Example lessons should involve the deconstruction of adverts, on the internet, in magazines and on TV so that children may ask how they are made to be persuasive and by who (Mediasmart, 2011). Educating children to contextualise the adverts that they are faced with on a daily basis is of prime importance according to Beder (2009) who found that nearly all the problems facing children today are a direct result of the efforts of corporations to make profits from children and to shape and socialise them to suit business interests.

References

Banaji, S. (2010) ‘Analysing Advertisements in the Classroom’ in Bazelgette, C. (Ed) Teaching Media in Primary Schools. London: Sage

Beder, S. (2009) This Little Kiddy went to Market. New York: Pluto Press

Gunter, B., Oates, C. & Blades, M. (2005) Advertising to Children on TV. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp1 – 13

Kenway, J. & Bullen, E. (2001) Consuming Children Buckingham: Open University Press

Leiss, William; Kline, Stephen & Jhally Sut (1990) Social communication in advertising. Persons, Products and Images of Well-being. Canada: Nelson.

Media Smart (2011) Resources for Body Image (Online) http://www.mediasmart.org.uk/resources/bodyimage

Packard, Vance ([1957] 1960), The Hidden Persuaders. London: Penguin Books