Gender Representation in Television Advertising Aimed at Children

Gender Representation in Television Advertising Aimed at Children

Television is full of advertising that is aimed at children, whether

it is to make them want something, or to get their parents to buy it

for them. This can actually be quite dangerous as it can make the

children become spoiled. Close inspection of these adverts makes us

question how children are being represented in them, as it appears

that everything is being promoted as being the perfect product, which

makes the children who the product is aimed at are made to think that

they will have to act like the children in the advert.

These are not fair and accurate representations of the children as

they are not like this at all; every child is different and unique in

their own way. The messages sent to young girls in particular are the

most interesting because they are being sent the message that they all

have to be “perfect princesses who always have to look beautiful” this

is wrong as this isn’t the way that girls should be seen

Advertisers segment the audiences into different sections because

different products would apply to different age groups, different

personalities and different couples etc. They create audience profiles

to determine what kind of person would buy their product, so they can

create the advert around the audience profile and hopefully attract

their desired target audience.

Some advertisers use pester power to try and make the child pester the

adult for the product. This is quite an effective sale strategy

because the younger children are, the more attention they require. In

some ways the advert is actually encouraging the child to ask

repeatedly for the product until the parents give in.

The spider man advert that was aimed at young boys aged about 8-12

years old was being very stereotypical of boys that age. They had the

boys in the advert that were the same age as the target audience, and

also the boys were wearing the stereotypical boy colours such as blue

and red.