Consumerism: Marketing to Children in the Modern Age

746 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: effects of tv advertising on children

Consumerism: Marketing to Children in the Modern Age
While watching TV in the evening one is expecting to see a fair amount of commercial advertisements. It doesn’t really matter if you stick around to watch the commercial or not Americans watch so much TV that they will get you eventually. The easiest hook is the never ending food commercials during the 6 o’clock time frame. What advertisers are creating is memories; you may not jump up immediately and head to the closest fast food joint right then and there. But the next day while running around you think I need a snack and head right over to one of the places that you watched in a commercial the night before. That emotion, memory connection that sent you to fast food heaven to try their new chicken wings is what makes the ad world so successful. Food ads are just one of many industries that use the emotional connection to sell products. Ad companies even hire psychologists to improve the emotional connection we have to things and brands. Just thinking about emotional manipulation could make anyone angry but what if all that emotional baggage was really aimed at your children?
Are advertisers really targeting our children to sell toys, food and clothes? The short answer is yes, they even go so far as using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine which parts of the brain react to different types of advertising (Kramer 2006). The TV, Internet and school are all included as the major ways of exposing children. Viral videos are meant to be shared between friends this in turn makes them perfect points of contact for ad makers to influence children. Google search engine and Facebook social media website both collect “likes” and direct market right on their websites. Kids and con...

... middle of paper ...

...rribly easy for kids to recognize brands and recall their favorite characters. Legislation and regulation is needed, many overseas countries have started passing laws protecting the right of our children. It is time for the United States to get up to date on this issue.

Works Cited
Kramer, Juli B. "Ethical Analysis And Recommended Action In Response To The Dangers Associated With Youth Consumerism." Ethics & Behavior 16.4 (2006): 291-303. Academic Search Premier.
Linnett, Richard. "Psychologists Protest Kids' Ads." Advertising Age 71.38 (2000): 4-69. Academic Search Premier.
Mandese, Joe. "Study Says Dvrs, Ads Can Co-Exist." Television Week 23.23 (2004): 35. Academic Search Premier.
Shields, Mike. "Kill The Messages." Mediaweek 17.8 (2007): 6. Academic Search Premier.
Stanley, T. L. "Babies In Brandland." Brandweek 48.37 (2007): 28-32. Academic Search Premier.

Show More
Related

  • The Myth Of Choice: How Junk-Food Companies Target Our Children

    660 Words  | 2 Pages

    George Parker once said, “The only people who care about advertising are the people who work in advertising." Advertisers use many different techniques that target children and teens. Many people do not realize how harmful this can turn out to be. Advertising plays a harmful role in the lives of youth because it poses health risks, prevents children and teens from saving money, and exposes them to way too many ads.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Every Nook And Currency: The Dangerous Spread Of Commercialized Culture

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article, Every Nook and Cranny: The Dangerous Spread of Commercialized Culture by Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor (Ackley 361). Since the early 90s is when Commercialism has bombarded the society. Ruskin and Schor provide examples why advertising has an effect on people’s health. Marketing related diseases afflicting people in the United States, and especially children, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and smoking-related illnesses. “Each day, about 2,000 U.S. children begin to smoke, and about one-third of them will die from tobacco-related illnesses” (Ackley 366). Children are inundated with advertising for high calorie junk food and fast food, and, predictably, 15 percent of U.S. children aged 6 to 19 are now overweight (Ackley 366). Commercialism promotes future negative effects and consumers don’t realize it.

    Read More

  • Charmin Toilet Paper Ad

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.

    Read More

  • The Persuaders Frontline Summary

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The Persuaders” by Frontline is about how advertising has affected Americans. It starts out by stating the problem of attaining and keeping the attention of potential customers. Balancing the rational and emotional side of an advertisement is a battle that all advertisers have trouble with. Human history has now gone past the information age and transcended into the idea age. People now look for an emotional connection with what they are affiliated with. The purpose of an emotional connection is to help create a social identity, a kind of cult like aroma. Because of this realization, companies have figured out that break through ideas are more important than anything else now. But there are only so many big

    Read More

  • Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood

    1469 Words  | 3 Pages

    The land of the free, brave and consumerism is what the United States has become today. The marketing industry is exploiting children through advertisement, which is ridiculously unfair to children. We are around advertisement and marketing where ever we go; at times, we don't even notice that we are being targeted to spend our money. As a matter of fact, we live to buy; we need and want things constantly, and it will never stop. The film, Consuming Kids , written by Adriana Barbaro and directed by Jeremy Earp, highlights children as this powerful demographic, with billions of dollars in buying power, but the lack of understanding of marketers’ aggressive strategies. Children are easily influenced and taken advantage of, which is why commercialization of children needs to stop. Commercialization to children leads to problems that parents do not even know are happening such as social, future, and rewired childhood problems. Government regulations need to put a stop to corporations that live, breathe and sell the idea of consumerism to children and instead show that genuine relationships and values are what are important.

    Read More

  • Marketing Towards Children

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    (3) Mizerski, Richard. "The Relationship Between Cartoon Trade Character Recognition And Attitude Toward Product Category In Young Children."Advertising. Uscf, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. .

    Read More

  • Robert Scholes on Video Texts - Comparison

    2393 Words  | 5 Pages

    According to Robert Scholes, author of On Reading a Video Text, commercials aired on television hold a dynamic power over human beings on a subconscious level. He believes that through the use of specific tools, commercials can hold the minds of an audience captive, and can control their abilities to think rationally. Visual fascination, one of the tools Scholes believes captures the minds of viewers, can take a simple video, and through the use of editing and special effects, turn it into a powerful scene which one simply cannot take his or her eyes from. Narrativity is yet another way Scholes feels commercials can take control of the thoughts of a person sitting in front of the television. Through the use of specific words, sounds, accompanying statements and or music, a television commercial can hold a viewer’s mind within its grasp, just long enough to confuse someone into buying a product for the wrong reason. The most significant power over the population held by television commercials is that of cultural reinforcement, as Scholes calls it. By offering a human relation throughout itself, a commercial can link with the masses as though it’s speaking to the individual viewer on an equal level. A commercial In his essay, Scholes analyzes a Budweiser commercial in an effort to prove his statements about the aforementioned tools.

    Read More

  • Money Advertisers Targeting Youth

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    advertising is becoming a bigger role in the lives of youth. Since deregulation in 1984, the money advertisers make off of kids has been increasing by millions each year. kids who don't even have the brain function to make a good choice on what they buy are being targeted as young as 5. As young kids become more accustomed to certain products young, they continue buying them over their whole life. This is what advertisers are causing by targeting the youth. Advertisers are finding that marketing to kids makes a lot of money, the youth believe everything they hear, and the advertising techniques they do today are almost sure to work.

    Read More

  • Childhood Obesity: Fast Food Companies Are To Blame

    904 Words  | 2 Pages

    Commercials make the viewer think about the product being advertised. Because of the amount of television children watch throughout the week, it allows the children to be exposed to the information over and over again. Per year, children are known to view thousands of fast food commercials. On a daily basis, a teen will usually view five advertisements and a child aged six to eleven will see around four advertisements (Burger Battles 4). Businesses use this strategy to “speak directly to children” (Ruskin 3). Although the big businesses in the fast ...

    Read More

  • Relation Between Advertising and Our Consumer Culture

    2541 Words  | 6 Pages

    Zyman, S. and Brott, A. (2002). The End of Advertising As We Know It, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, Page 9, Page 10, Page 19

    Read More

  • The Power of Advertising on Teens

    1394 Words  | 3 Pages

    Teens are an easy reach for advertisers. “Teens are jaded, bombarded by tons of advertising messages”(Winsor 1). There are advertisements at movie theaters, on television, and in teen magazines. Advertisers also reach teens through social media such as the internet and websites. Teens are constantly on Facebook and YouTube, whi...

    Read More

  • Advertising and Its Impact on Children

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    Advertising has had a powerful impact on today’s children. From songs, to logos. to characters, advertisers keep in mind their audiences. Competition is the force which causes advertisers to target children. Children are targeted through the catch phrases. animated characters, and toys in these competitive advertisements.

    Read More

  • Advertising to Children Must Be Banned

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a little girl I loved watching television shows on Saturday mornings. I’d get upset when a show would proceed to commercial. That is until I watched the shiny new toy being played with by the girl my age and of course the cool new one that came into the happy meal, then I’d forget. After seeing the appealing commercial I’d run to my mom and try to slickly mention it. “You know McDonalds has a new Monster’s Inc. toy in their happy meal. Isn’t that great? “Now I realize that back then I was targeted by big companies to beg my parents for things that I didn’t need or that wasn’t good for me in order to make money. Advertising today is affecting the health of today’s children because they eat the unhealthy foods advertised to them on: television, the internet, and even at school. Therefore, an impassioned discussion of possible solutions has been brewing.

    Read More

  • The Exploitation Of Children In Television Advertising

    4398 Words  | 9 Pages

    Across America in homes, schools, and businesses, sits advertisers' mass marketing tool, the television, usurping freedoms from children and their parents and changing American culture. Virtually an entire nation has surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling. Advertisers, within the constraints of the law, use their thirty-second commercials to target America's youth to be the decision-makers, convincing their parents to buy the advertised toys, foods, drinks, clothes, and other products. Inherent in this targeting, especially of the very young, are the advertisers; fostering the youth's loyalty to brands, creating among the children a loss of individuality and self-sufficiency, denying them the ability to explore and create but instead often encouraging poor health habits. The children demanding advertiser's products are influencing economic hardships in many families today. These children, targeted by advertisers, are so vulnerable to trickery, are so mentally and emotionally unable to understand reality because they lack the cognitive reasoning skills needed to be skeptical of advertisements. Children spend thousands of hours captivated by various advertising tactics and do not understand their subtleties.

    Read More

  • The Power of Advertising

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Commercials works through the human emotions and vanity and it appeals toward the psychologically domain turning into a temptation for weak mind people. For instance, if a person is at home watching T.V., very comfortable and suddenly, a commercial promoting any kind of food and drink comes up, that person will be hungry and thirsty in a couple of minutes. The advertising influenced his mind, provoking an involuntary reaction to do what the commercial induced him to do.

    Read More

More about Consumerism: Marketing to Children in the Modern Age

Open Document