Advertising to Children Must Be Banned

968 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effect of advertising

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. Advertising is the paid, impersonal, one-way marketing of persuasive information from an identified sponsor circulated through channels of mass communication to promote the adoption of goods, services or ideas. (“What is Advertising?”) Chuck Blore, a partner in the advertising firm Chuck Blore & Don Ruchman, Inc. once said that “advertising is the art of arresting the human intelligence just long enough to get money from it.” (Shah, Anup.). Children are targeted and manipulated everyday by corporations like McDonalds, Burger King, and General Mills and don’t even know it. Child Psychologist Allen Kanner reported in 2000 that three-year-old American children typically recognize one hundred company logos. ("Advertising.") Children between four and eight don’t recognize that ads are paid commercials intended to convince them into buying something. Children see about 6,000 advertis... ... middle of paper ... ...ive and up. (Thomas, 13) There are possible solutions for the problem of advertising to children some being already used in other countries. Works Cited Advertising." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Cooper, Dr. Anthony. "What Is Advertising?" What Is Advertising? University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 2013. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. "How Marketers Target Kids." MediaSmarts. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. Kravis, Anders. “Stop Advertising to Children.” Online video. Youtube. Youtube, 5 Mar. 2013. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. McGinnis, J. Michael., Jennifer Appleton. Gootman, and Vivica I. Kraak. Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? Washington, D.C.: National Academies, 2006. Print. Shah, Anup. “Media and Advertising.” Global Issues. 04 Mar. 2012. Web. 04 Dec. 2013

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • Eric Schlosser Rhetorical Analysis

    466 Words  | 1 Pages

    Eric schlosser, a writer for Atlantic Monthly, addresses in his article, “Kid Kustomer”, the various marketing strategies used on children to American parents after the success of ads for the young. Schlosser exemplifies how companies market their products to children in order to convince parents to recognize the fact that the advertisements produced by companies turn children into customers. He employs parallel syntax, figurative language, and a objective tone to accomplish his goal.

    Read More

  • Barbara Mantel Prevent Obesity Analysis

    165 Words  | 1 Pages

    Americans are constantly facing obstacles to healthy eating. Obesity is something that is growing rapidly in the United States. Some Americans argue that fast-food restaurants play a major role in obesity. In “Preventing Obesity” Barbara Mantel states, “Four of the companies — Cadbury, Coca-Cola, Hershey and Mars — pledge not to advertise any food and beverage products on programming for children younger than 12, and the remaining firms pledge that 100 percent of their children's advertising would be for self-designated ‘better-for-you’ products ” (805-806). Whenever children see a junk-food or candy commercial they are instantly attracted to it, it might be because of how colorful they are or the usual toy they receive when they buy kids

    Read More

  • Marketing Towards Children

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...chemes to manipulate people and don’t worry too much about it. Since it is being taken care by others and is not an unknown factor of the world. However, even in these cases, we cannot allow future notice of children to be turned into hyperactive manipulative consumers in advertising schemes, for the sake of the future.

    Read More

  • Smokey the Bear

    1239 Words  | 3 Pages

    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. Advertising in today's society is largely based on brand name recognition. It doesn't matter how good the product being sold is, but rather how good the product's advertisements are.

    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

  • Fast Food Nation Satire

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    Corporations cause grave concern through aggressive marketing ads because they hope to inflict “nostalgic childhood memories of a brand that will lead to a lifetime of purchases because companies now plan ‘cradle-to-grave’ advertising strategies” (43). Children, before they have a sense of identity, are already being manipulated into believing that status and self worth are associated with materialistic ideas or wealth. This advertising is applied to all aspects of life, not just junk food consumption. Companies and corporations have been targeting children because of their vulnerability, causing “the FTC’s proposed ban, which was supported by American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, and the Child Welfare League” (46). This ban against advertising is necessary for the future health of America, but was attacked and rejected by vicious businesses, who are preoccupied with their monetary gains. A professional organization composed of pediatric medical doctors, who spend their lives improving the health and wellbeing of children, support the television ad ban on children. Therefore, it is unquestionable how wrong it is for these enormous corporations to exploit the naivety of

    Read More

  • Consuming Kids Documentary Analysis

    524 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Consuming Kids” is a documentary produced by Media Education Foundation in 2008, on how corporations are taking over our childhood. Kids are becoming targets to the marketplace. Major advertisement corporations are using their marketing on children in a harmful way. Some of these harmful ways include medical issues, the influence on body image, and lack of desire to play outside. This matters, because of our future youth. Advertisements are a domino effect on society.

    Read More

  • Advertisements: “I’m Lovin’ It?”

    858 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Advertisers know how our brains are wired. They know the pathway to the emotional brain is faster than the pathway to your logical thinking brain,” says Erin Walsh, coordinator of the MediaWise Program at the National Institute on Media and the Family. Advertising has gone from a beneficial way to promote products, but today advertisements seem to have a more negative influence on society, especially children. Children are easily influenced by anything around them, and are often attacked most by advertisers. In fact, American Children view about 40,000 hours of television commercials a year. (See “Figure One” on page four) (YOUR) By the time children graduate from high school, they would have watched about 600,000 hours of television!

    Read More

  • Advertising and its Effect on Childhood Obesity

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harris, Jennifer L., Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Tim Lobstein, and Kelly D. Brownell. " A Crisis in the Marketplace: How Food Marketing Contributes to Childhood Obesity and What Can Be Done." Columbia.edu. N.p., 31 Oct. 2008. Web. The Web.

    Read More

  • Analysis of McDonald’s

    1650 Words  | 4 Pages

    Worcester Polytechnic Institution. "Fast Food Marketing to Children." Public Health Communication. (2007). http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-082107-231740/unrestricted/Appendix_1.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014).

    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

  • Manipulation of the Mind

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    Commercialism is the practice of using advertising strategies to appeal to the interests of potential customers for the purpose of turning a profit, and it relies heavily on consumerism. Millions of people all over the world are exposed to advertisements everyday that are created to increase public desire in different companies’ products, and many of these people are naïve children. The desires of children are often exploited by large corporations because people of younger ages are just seen as corruptible minds. A study shows that children from the ages of four all the way up to their teens spend more than $130 billion put together every year (“Youth-Oriented Advertising”). The entire notion of consumerism since its beginnings has always been persuasive and manipulative. After World War II, Americans were compe...

    Read More

  • Children are the Target of Advertisements

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    Now a days children watch more television programs where they become the target for some advertisements. The use of computers and electronic devices also influence children when advertisements appear while they play their favorite games on those electronics. Advertisements are the merchant’s media to sell a product to the public. Almost everyone in the United States watches a lot of advertisements while they are watching their favorite television program every day. Most of this viewers are children, therefore children become the main target because they are easier to influence.

    Read More

  • Advertising and Its Impact on Children

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    Advertising is using the power of suggestion to sell a product. In the case of children, a

    Read More

More about Advertising to Children Must Be Banned

Open Document