Preview

Is Advertising to Children Ethical?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
895 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Is Advertising to Children Ethical?
With the advancement of technology, people expose in the world full of advertisement. Watching television, listening to radio and even walking on the street, people are shown with variety of advertisements. However, one issue which deserves our careful thought, with the prevalence of advertisement, is whether the advertising method to children is ethical.
Many people, these days, criticize that marketers take advantage of immature mind of children to promote their products. Many report showed that children under the age of eight do not understand the intrinsic bias of advertising and children tend to believe that the information in advertisement is true and accurate. Marketers use this point to promote products to children. That McDonald’s promotes its food as healthy and balanced is a flawless illustration. Although, a burger really contained vegetables and meat and it seems to be a balanced diet, the energy of a burger and the sugar contained in the drink far exceeds a children need a day. Marketers often hide the disadvantages of the product but only promote the bright side of the product. The information mentioned in the advertisement will stay in children minds and be strengthened with repeated exposures. Advertisement can affect children cognizance to that product. A research done by Dr Tom N. Robinson, a professor in Stanford University, can prove this point. In the study, 63 children aged 3-5 years old taste exact same McDonald’s food but one with the brand name on the wrapped sheet and one without. The food without brand name lost every time in the study. This study showed how powerful the advertisement is to change a children mind. The repetition of advertisement heightens the children’s purchase request and put pressure on their parents.
Marketers defense that advertisement is not the main factor for children to buy things. There may well be cases that some children buy things that they do not need, but this does not mean that all because of the



References: 1. Dale Kunkel, (February 23, 2004) Television Advertising Leads to Unhealthy Habits in Children; Says APA Task Force. [Viewed], [From] http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2004/02/children-ads.aspx 2. David Airey, (AUGUST 14TH, 2007) Advertising to children: right or wrong? [Viewed] December 8, 2012 [From] http://www.davidairey.com/advertising-to-children-right-or-wrong/ 3. REBECCA A. CLAY, (September 2000) Advertising to children: Is it ethical? [Viewed] December 8, 2012 [From] http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep00/advertising.aspx 4. Wikipedia, Toy-advertising [Viewed] December 8, 2012 [From] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_advertising

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Advertising I have first-hand experience with advertising impacting my views and opinions. Jean Kilbourne, in Killing Us Softly IV, speaks about the influence that advertising has over people. According to Kilbourne, everyone feels equally unaffected by advertisements, when in reality, their effect is quick, cumulative, and subconscious (Killing Us Softly IV). This illustrates that advertisements sell more than just a tangible product: they sell ideas that we do not even realize we are absorbing. This understanding makes me think to how advertising affects children. When I was a child, I used to watch commercials with awe, falling into their trap of…

    • 2294 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Buying all that expensive jewelry and that glamorous, new shoes, is a way for you into buying popularity. At least that's what most children think. Advertisers create simple commercials that are able to make children feel stupendous, when they buy the new “coolest’ product, today. Why do we feel this way, you ask? The company's advertisements are convincing children into purchasing the product, until their wallets are empty. Advertisements contain effective techniques that are targeted to children, but they could be seeing problems in their physical and psychical health in the future.…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kid Kustomer

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Kid Kustomers” No matter where children are or what they are doing they’ll always find some sort of advertisements. It can be when their casually watching television, reading a magazine or just playing games on their computer. Advertisements are different forms of communication whose purpose is to make their product known to the public. Marketers aren’t partial to certain people; they target anyone and every age group, but recently there has been an upsurge of advertisements aimed towards children. In Eric Schlosser’s article, Kid Kustomers, he demonstrates how child advertising has boomed by the tactics marketers use to get children to want and demand certain companies’ products.…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Laura Proctor Advertisement Analysis Advertising isn’t always just selling a product, but sometimes selling values. Advertisers, now more than ever, use more implicit means to make you feel a certain loyalty or comfort towards their companies. Advertisements are virtually everywhere, from computers to television and even in schools, it’s hard to escape their hold. Children are even more vulnerable to these advertisements because they don’t understand the persuasive ideas brought about in ads. An example of this is a Barbie advertisement in a weekly Toys R Us ad. The advertisers’ main goal is to make money off of our youth and to take advantage of their innocence while seeming to be a friend.…

    • 358 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Especially when advertisements are toys such as big electronic cars, beautiful and lovely dolls, they entice children to have one of these toys. While these toys are almost expensive and their parents are not able to pay for them his huge amount of money just on a toy. In most of thses situations children start to cry ot nag for a long time and drive their parents intorelable; so, they have to buy these toys for their children hesitately. This aspect of advertisements have two main bad effect on children: first, they squander high amount of money, and second, they learn that they can earn everything they want by…

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    3. Calvert, S. L. (2008). Children as consumers: Advertising and marketing. The Future of Children, 18(1), 205-234. doi:10.1353/foc.0.0001…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gantz, Walter (2007). Food for Thought: Television Advertising to Children in the United States. A Kaiser Family Foundation Report. March 2007. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7618.pdf…

    • 2665 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Child Consumerism

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Life of Advertising Dear Editor, Children have become their own category of consumers. According to Kids Health, a child takes in an average of 40,000 television advertisements a year and about 3,000 general ads a day, and on average there are eighteen minutes of commercials per hour of television (Kids Health). With advertisements and images coming from all mediums and being constantly projected in front of children’s faces, it is bound to have an impact on them. This impact is mental, physical, short term and long term. Today, because advertisements seem so appealing and are so regular, they are becoming a large part of a child’s everyday life and are creating an image of what the youth should be, affecting their identities, as well as altering the basic nature of children. Television is playing a major role to create a materialistic generation and parents need to redirect their children from the path they are being led down by marketers.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The article The Ethics of Food Advertising Targeted Toward Children: Parental Viewpoint touches on how advertising in the market directly effects children’s unhealthy food choices and is centered around the parents’ ethical views of advertising food for children. This article uses statistical evidence to prove just that, that the market is affecting the health of children on a global scale. The article then turns to how some are tackling this issue with bans and regulations on advertising to our youth. The rest of the article is about a survey completed by parents to further prove their viewpoint on the effects that advertising has on children. The four main points of parents’ attitude toward food advertising according to the survey are: there is too much advertising directed at children, advertisers deceive children to buy their products, there is too much sugar in the foods being advertised, and that advertising teaches children bad eating habits.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why do Ads Target Children? Have you ever been in an isle of a store and heard, but mom I really want this I saw it on television? This is a product of advertising. Since the late 1980’s children have emerged as a key demographic to marketers. Advertisements selling everything from the latest video game to the newest automobile are now targeted to the youth of our world. Children have buying power that sways their parents’ purchases, and they are the future consumer.…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Preface In
this
paper
I
will
discuss
how
McDonald’s
markets
its
products
towards
 children.
This
is
an
issue
that
has
been
much
discussed,
especially
due
to
 questionable
ethics
practices.

 In
order
to
complete
my
paper
I
have
mostly,
however,
focused
on
the
articles
of
 Sarah
Pink,
because
they
are
most
relevant
to
my
subject.
In
addition
to
Sarah
 Pink’s
articles
I
have
also
looked
through
several
articles
that
deal
with
visual
 communication
and
advertising
to
children,
as
well
as
McDonald’s
advertising
 campaigns
and
articles
that
discuss
those
campaigns.
 Because
print
ads
are
easier
to
describe
in
a
paper,
I
have
chosen
to
focus
on
this
 specific
type
of
advertisement.
 Due
to
the
technical
aspect
of
being
away
on
an
international
minor,
I
am
not
 able
to
hand
the
paper
in,
in
hard
copy.…

    • 2865 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What is more children do not have the skills to critique ads. It has been shown that very young children who have watched TV have positive reactions to brand images, like McDonald's. This is very frightening. Children cannot yet evaluate ads, and they cannot protect themselves from the very sophisticated methods of manipulation that TV ads use.…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Advertising to Children: Acceptable As Is or Is There A Need For Regulation? Companies are teaching and telling kids that they have to have this, that, and more through their persuasive advertisements. They have taught kids the common nagging phrase “I want, I want, I want,” they’re making overindulgence an acceptable trait, and they are convincing children that they are inferior if they don’t have one of the latest most popular products to hit the market. According to Solomon, The central virtue/ characteristic to leading a good life is moderation/self-control. This is apparently the exact opposite of what is being portrayed in advertisements directed toward children. The corporations themselves are not only promoting this behavior for their benefit, but they also obtain these same characteristics in regards to money. Advertisements toward children should be restricted and will be explained with reference to the ideas and philosophy of business ethics through Solomon, Locke, and Friedman.…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Nowadays, in the developed countries, the need for regulation of advertising aimed at children is generally acknowledged. And that happens because children are a very specific target group with special features due to young age. Children do not have the skills to critique advertisements and are very fooled by them. They cannot recognize if all these things advertised are useful or not. Advertisements influence children in a negative way most of the times. For example, junk food advertisements lead to obesity. Advertising for toys and clothing products lead to consumer mania or antisocial behavior.…

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    A great deal of advertising on television is aimed at children, promoting not only toys and sweets but also products such as food, drink, music, films and clothing to young consumers from toddlers to teenagers. Increasingly, this practice is coming under criticism from parents’ organisations, politicians and pressure groups in many countries. Many western countries have currently imposed national restrictions, and these have also been proposed in most other European Union countries and in the USA.…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics