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Effects of advertising towards children
Effects of advertising towards children
Concepts and ideas from the movie, "Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood
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In the documentary Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood and Argument—Yes! Children need Protection..., media critic Hoerrner and marketing various marketers’ state that marketers sell children's product, not values. Consequently, marketers teach values of self-worth and deceiving in order to sell their product. These values that children learn are like fingerprints, no two children will have gotten the same message from ads. Values children learn come from the American Mantra as Velma Lapoint point out from the documentary that “you are what buy...own...if you don’t have it you are less than...a nobody”. This powerful statement tells children that if they do not have a product they are worthless (Lapoint 16). Marketing advertisements …show more content…
teach children to become deceitful, materialistic and greedy and in turn, children doubt their self-worth and pick up on unhealthy habits. Children are making it obvious that they are greedy.
Enola Arid from the documentary points out that “life is about buying, life is about getting” (Aird 3) as children see that the only way they can achieve their desires is by using the ‘nagging phenomenon’ and throwing ‘tantrums’. The ‘nagging phenomenon’ is when children keep asking for something over and over again until their parents are annoyed or irritated with their children. Parents give into their children’s demands to get their children to stop bothering them. Arid also states that the “nag factor is designed to help maximize the number of times children will keep asking and keep asking” (Aird 3). The children seek the satisfaction of knowing that they won the battle against their parents and are getting what they wanted. Moreover, children only tend to like the new things that they have recently received, and later forget about their old toy as another new invention comes along. This happens as children have a low attention span. These children show that they are being made to love things only if they are new which tends to help marketers as their products as it will ensure that children will be hooked to their motto “cradle to grave” (Aird 4). “Cradle to grave” is a selling analogy where marketers try to get children to love their products early in life. As once a child is hooked on a brand they will become a loyal customer until they die. Through a child’s greed, children are
materialistic. Children are not materialistic by nature but have to be taught to be through ads. Betsy Taylor states that children see the “world of materialism” (Taylor 19) because children are told what they have defined them as a person. The ‘world of materialism’ refers to how society materializes everything though the consumer culture. If a child has little to nothing that child is considered worthless among his friends, while a child with everything is considered popular. From materialism, the values children loose are manners, morals, patience, and many other things. Children tend to forget it is not about what a person has but who they are. Kids are also taught that happiness lays in how much they have. Susan Linn states that children are being told through ads “that thing or stuff or brands will make us happy” (17). This is in fact not true as happiness can’t be defined through material possessions. Aird also points out that children desire the “instant gratification” (Aird 17). ‘Instant gratification’ is seen as children getting happiness by getting what they desire. Children are so used to getting what they want, they get an “attitude [that states] it’s all about me” (Aird 18) as children think that the world revolves around them. Materialistic children correlate possessions with their self-worth.
In the essay In Praise of Boredom, Ellen Ruppel Shell states that allowing children get bored gives them the access to become creative. As she was studying this statement, she began to realize that not many parents leave their kids with boredom, on the other hand they always have their schedules set for them. Shell supports her statement by putting some of the fault on marketing. She states that marketing manipulates many parents by advertising many products and activities, making parents believe that it 's the only way their kids will become "successful" and "productive adults." She states that all the advertisements make parents worry that their children may be "wasting time" and/or "missing opportunities."
“Poor Kids,” by PBS Frontline is a documentary that focuses on the children of three families living in poverty. The documentary gives a better understanding on how children are affected by the poverty they are faced with. The majority of the film focuses on their lives and it shows how they are living five years after the initial recording. It gives insight on how each family faces different circumstances due to their poverty.
In the article “Kids Kustomers” by Eric Schlosser, Schlosser talks about the big idea of kids and advertisements. Ads for children have a great influence because they are everything to a child and eye catching. Schlosser has points that focus on how children get what they want when they see an ad or even a toy on the shelf. As he states the pester power or even just using one the seven kinds of naggings He also touches on the subject that when parents are occupied from their busy schedules they have that sense of guilt towards a child, since they have little to no time they shower them with toys or what they want. Instead of having a control with how children are exposed to seeing ads on a tv children are being overly exposed to technology
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.
Consumerism is the idea that influences people to purchase items in great amounts. Consumerism makes trying to live the life of a “perfect American” rather difficult. It interferes with society by replacing the normal necessities for life with the desire for things with not much concern for the true value of the desired object. Children are always easily influenced by what they watch on television. Swimme suggests in his work “How Do Kids Get So Caught Up in Consumerism” that although an advertiser’s objective is to make money, the younger generation is being manipulated when seeing these advertisements. Before getting a good understanding of a religion, a child will have seen and absorbed at least 30,000 advertisements. The amount of time teenagers spend in high school is lesser than the amount of advertisement that they have seen (155). The huge amount of advertisements exposed to the younger generation is becomi...
...ad, whether it’s a toy when they were younger, a cell phone such as the iPhone as they aged, or a car when you get older. Ads are always telling us that we need to buy and our eyes seem to be telling us that everyone has one and that you need one too. Commercials can be very convincing; they can make you feel that your life would be much simpler if you had that specific product. The fact that everybody seems to have it will just add on the pressure of not having it. The suggestions made by commercials are mostly to benefit the sellers not the consumers. It is important to consider when those advertisements are trying to influence you.
Babies is a documentary that centers around four diverse infants throughout their first year on Earth. These four babies are born in four different areas of the world. The film demonstrates how people from different parts of the world can grow up completely different than other parts, while still sharing many similarities. Ponijao is an African baby who is born in Opuwo, Namibia. Mari is a young Japanese girl who was born in Tokyo, Japan. Bayar is a baby who was born in Bayanchandmani, Mongolia. The fourth baby’s name is Hattie, born in San Francisco, California. While viewing the documentary, many theories and concepts in psychology are portrayed.
...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.
Marketers become rich by selling the idea of happiness to children; that life is all about buying and getting, and money is happiness. This ill treatment of children, by marketers, negatively affects social aspects of children. In more recent years, marketers have started to push more expensive, “branded” products to children. As Velmha La.Point states, “There’s a mantra in American society you are what you have, you are what you buy, you are what you own. The corollary of that, is and if you don’t have it, then you are a nobody”(Consuming Kids). This then leads to things such as depression or low self-esteem if ...
I know it can be hard but try to remember when we were kids how much we all loved to wake up early on Saturday morning, sneak to the T.V., and watch our favorite cartoons. We loved to do this not only so that we could see our favorite characters go through troublesome dilemmas each episode, but also that we could see what was new on the market and try to convince our parents to spare a few dollars and buy it. This tactic has been used from years upon years and will likely continue occurring for the simple reason that it works. Businessmen in the marketing know that kids will see the latest and greatest thing and insist to their parent that they must have it. And with a little persistence and maybe a temper tantrum or two, they usually get it. Sometime commercials will appeal to not only the child, but also to parents because they can see the new toys that they are able to buy for their kids. Because there is always a constant demand for new toys, there will always be a entrepreneur trying to make money by creating a product, and market it in the way of commercialization. It is a never ending cycle which will always occur as long as there is T.V. because it is how they make their money.
The French documentary Babies shows the first year of development of four different babies who live in four completely different environments. The film follows Ponijao, a little girl from Namibia, Bayar, a little boy from Mongolia, Mari, a girl from Tokyo, and Hattie, a girl from San Francisco. Even though the babies live in very dissimilar parts of the world, their physical, cognitive, and social development seem to all follow a set pattern. On the other hand, the babies learn to do some activities distinctive to their environment by watching their parents and siblings. Therefore, Babies provides evidence to support both the nature and nurture sides of the debate.
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.
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself” (Drucker). There are numerous key things that we require in life in order to survive, from the time we are conceived as babies until our golden years. In the middle of these stages we become more established and more astute and we learn new values and abilities to succeed in life. We likewise start to settle on purchasing choices of distinctive brands and items that we buy. Everyone has an essential need in life from babies who need formula and pampers that are advertised from marketers as Pampers or Luvs or Enfamil. To, all children and teens that require an education that is advertised by the Public School System in their
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.
the child’s mind to manipulate the child into desiring their products. Through TV, cartoons and