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Effect of Advertisement on Consumer Behavior
An essay on advertising influences on children
An essay on advertising influences on children
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Recommended: Effect of Advertisement on Consumer Behavior
Children are subjected to tens of thousands of ads every year through a variety of media platforms. The insane amounts of advertisements kids meet has many negative effects on their lives such as distorted body image, increased child-directed marketing, and push to become consumers, as well at the glorification of unhealthy consumption habits of food, drugs and alcohol. These implications last not only through childhood, but also carry over into their adult lives.
Young people, especially girls, are bombarded from an early age with ads and images in movies, magazines and on the television showcasing society’s ideal body image and therefore presenting the importance of physical attractiveness. A study from 1996 looked at three weeks of Saturday morning cartoons and found that half of all ads directed towards girls had some mention of physical attractiveness (“How Does Today’s Advertising Impact on Your Body Image”). How are young people, specifically females, supposed to
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Companies realize this and take advantage of children’s defenselessness to sell their products. By easily convincing a child to want something, corporations know that they have an automatic route to the parents, and their wallets, through children’s persistent nature and nagging. It is completely unfair for large companies to use children and their moldable minds as a means to sell more product. Yet, advertising directed to children is legal and continues to happen everyday. In their defense large companies will say that it is the parents that should be the ones protecting their children and teaching them about the truth of advertising, but with the amount of ads children see everyday, it can be nearly impossible to give direction on all of
Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year worldwide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities.
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 ...
For decades, targeted advertisement directed to children and teenagers was a somewhat controversial issue. Every year young people are exposed to 40,000 advertisements on television only, not counting number of advertisements on the Internet or on billboards. This exposure could be responsible for excess weight in children and consumption of alcohol and tobacco by teenagers (Strasburger 2001). Despite existent positive effects of targeted advertisements, negative impacts significantly outweigh them, and it is clear that targeted advertising carries noticeable harm for children`s education, health, psychology and social life. This essay will evaluate impact of targeted advertising on children and adolescents considering its possible positive and negative effects. Which include obesity and ‘sexualization’ ...
Have you ever been bombarded with a choice? Marketers and advertisers make this very easy as they are the ones who push the choices on you. The role of advertisers has been to target kids through media, get them hooked on a product that could affect their health, and to get kids to like their product so that the kids will buy more and the advertisers will make a profit. Such as junk food. These are a big part of how advertisers target our youth.
In today’s world, advertising reaches and influences teens in both negative and positive ways. Teens are bombarded with ads through television, teen magazines, radio, and the internet. Advertisers know teen’s buying power and their willingness to spend their money. Many companies even hire teens to be “consultants” and trendspotters. They want to know what teens are thinking and their likes and dislikes. Some feel this is a good thing and that teens are letting companies know what they want. On the other hand, many believe all this advertising to teens has a negative impact on them. Ads show models with “perfect” bodies. “Every year, the average adolescent sees over 5,000 advertisements mentioning attractiveness” (Haugen). Some feel this leads to teens having low self-esteem, while others argue that it does not have an effect. These people believe teens have the power and control in the advertising world.
Advertising is an exaggerated reflection of life and founded in some of the perspectives the audience may have of society. While advertising does have a negative impact upon society by frequently portraying stereotypes, materialism and sex appeal as a method to sell products (Pollay, 1986), it is also true that society shapes these advertisements. Advertisement being a force upon the population is just as true as the statement that advertising is shaped by the population. In admitting that both of these statements are true, it is clear that advertisements inflicting the portrayal of certain negative concepts is caused by a society holding these values and beliefs. As advertising is moving forward it is becoming more filtered to suit the values of an individual as well which holds contention towards Pollay’s statement. Pollay has a valid point that advertisements does have a negative effects upon the viewer. However, it is a question about whether it is the responsibility of the advertiser to change the values of advertisements to suit more ethical values.
Advertisements focus on physical attractiveness, which contributes to males and females having a negative perception of their bodies. Advertisements through a broader range of media are becoming a common form of presenting thin and fit models on screen and printed form and because of this are causing many issues across society which is affecting emotional and physical wellbeing. These people are being exposed to fashion advertising though all types of media have an increased desire to achieve ‘The Ideal Look’. An interviewee stated, “Even from a young age I have always felt like this. Seeing the people all over magazine covers, T.V, videos, pretty much everywhere there would be someone that was super thin and would make me feel uncomfortable about my body”. By the time a woman is 17 years of age she has been exposed to an estimated 250,000 media advertisements with almost all being beauty and body related. An average woman sees 400 – 600 advertisements per day which includes all types of adverts; fashion magazines, television and
Low self esteem and an unhealthy body image will only grow stronger for a teenage girl if she views underweight and unhealthy advertisements of models looking happy with themselves. At these young ages, they do not understand how unrealistic the standards media have created, as most adult women do not fully grasp it. It is not only media that is forming these problems, but society is to blame as well. In the article The Beauty Myth and Female Consumers: The Controversial Role of Advertising, the authors state “advertising has been vilified for upholding-perhaps even creating-the emaciated standard of beauty by which girls are taught from childhood to judge the worth of their own bodies”(Stephens & Hill, 1994). Children have more access to media now than ever before, which is furthering their exposure to these ideals of looking slim and beautiful for girls, and strong and muscular for boys. From a young age, girls are being told “ you're not pretty enough” or “ you’re too fat”. These phrases only heighten their already low self esteem. It is essential that girls at a young age learn to love their bodies, that no matter how tall or how thin, they are perfect the way they
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.
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...
Have you ever turned on the TV one day, flip through the channels, and come across another kiddy advertisement? Or wondered why companies spend so much of their time and money on advertising their products to kids? If you turn on the TV or visit a video game website, there are ads everywhere, most of which are meant for kids. Some companies also market through social media sites such as Instagram, where they tell kids that they will get more followers if they watch an ad, download an app, or write a review. Now, some companies are even advertising their products to kids through schools.
During any given day, a person is exposed to a constant stream of advertising. It has become a part of life, quietly seeping into the subconscious while watching television programs, shopping for groceries, or even on the daily commutes. The main purpose of advertising is to illicit an emotion that drives us to purchase the end product. They influence attitudes, ideas and behaviors in those watching, and unfortunately those shifts aren’t always toward the positive. In the last ten years, there has been a large increase in the teenage population with anorexia and obesity disorders(Dens 368). According to another article, underage consumption of alcohol and tobacco has increased by 38% in 6 years (Jernigan 23). Lastly, more females are obsessing about weight loss, although they cannot be defined as medically obese, as well as have a lower self esteem levels(Halliwell par 8). The reasoning behind all these occurrences, according to many psychologists, is the onslaught of unhealthy, unethical and irresponsible advertising from the media for profit. In essence, the propaganda creates a need to imitate the attitudes, actions, images or behaviors shown. The issue then becomes that the continual bombardment of overly emotional and explicit adverting is detrimental to the audience.
The findings in Dittman’s article fully support my findings as well as my own personal. beliefs that advertising to children is unethical because a lot of the children watching the TV are doing so without adult supervision. A lot of children watching TV are 8 or younger and they do not fully comprehend the importance of the subliminal messages that the companies are sending. out by using their cartoons and catchy songs to hook the child into buying their products. I believe that advertising is a modern example of brainwashing and that with no parental supervision or no parental limits, our nation’s youth will be so caught up in the power of advertising, that their youth and innocence will end much faster than the generation before.
Advertising, as defined is a form of marketing that seeks to manipulate, encourage, and sometimes persuade and audience into consuming a certain goods, products, or ideas. The word advertising comes from the latin phrase 'Ad Vertere' which means to turn toward or to get the attention of. Advertising can exist in the form of print, commercial, and audial, to name a few. It can appear as written text, spoken word, or be visual. While many of us think of advertising as how it is utilized presently, advertising has existed for a great deal of history. For example, ancient advertising can be seen in the cave and wall paintings of ancient Africa, South America, and Asia dating back to 4000 BCE. Also, Egyptians used advertising in the form of posters and messages printed on papyrus. There is also evidence of advertising used in Rome as well as in Greece printed on papyrus for things such as lost and found posters and also wanted posters. There has also been evidence of displays of political and commercial advertising in ancient Arabia as well as in the ruins of Pompeii. There are key elements to advertising that advertisers must know in order to be successful. A brand must be innovative and so must their advertising. The advertisements must inspire the consumer and make them desire. ColorGirl Cosmetics had demonstrated this through their advertising campaigns through the use of the cover girl, an ability to adapt to the changing trends whether it be a draw to the natural or a call out for diversity. CoverGirl and also many other beauty and fashion brands utilize models and celebrities because they know that most consumers admire and wish to be or look li...
...e a huge influence on the type of food young viewers are eating. They persuade them to spend money on toys/clothes. Unfortunately, children are very vulnerable when they are young. Therefore, these advertisements lead them to a negative behavioural change. In today’s world, parents should be paying a close attention to their kids, because the world is not safe. We are all victims of advertisement. It is around us at all times.