Children Cannot Be Shielded From Advertising And Branding (Essay Sample)

CHILDREN CANNOT BE SHIELDED FROM ADVERTISING AND BRANDING
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Children cannot be shielded from Advertising and Branding
Advertising is a human endeavor that has persisted for a very long time; archaeologists have uncovered evidence and sign that advertising of rental property of as early as the ancient Rome and Pompeii. Town criers were another early form of advertising. As an industry, advertising did not take off until the arrival of the various mass media: printing, radio, and television, and has even gained significant mileage because of the recent technological advances in communication channels; social media and internet. Nevertheless, concerns over advertising targeting children preceded both radio and television. Children, by virtue of being less experienced because of their limited exposure, are more prone to advertising and pervasive branding (Schor & Ford, 2007). From unfortunately, the minors cannot be shielded from advertising and branding because the advertisers and marketers have developed necessary mechanisms and prowess to use technology to reach targeted audience.
The need for the protection of children from the influence of technology is undeniable. For instance, the British Parliament passed and implemented legislation in 1874 intended to protect children from the efforts of merchants to induce them to buy products and assume debt. Often, the debt goes to the parents who may not want to disappoint their children by failing to purchase whatever the children ask for. Many other stakeholders have also raised concerns over the issue of advertisers and marketers targeting on children. This is in view that minors are less informed and lack the exposure needed for one to discern and make independent decisions even when subjected to the influence of pervasive adverts and marketing tricks. With the conscience that children are often fond of eating, marketers are creative in advertising junk food over the internet, television, and radio among other channels (Harms & Kelner, 2010). Besides, the ads are designed such that they appear more appealing to the less knowledgeable children, a trend that has been perfected over the years marketing and advertising have been in existence.
From an historical perspective, commercial appeals to children did not become commonplace until the advent and widespread adoption of television and grew exponentially with the advent of cable television, which allowed programmers to develop entire channels of child-oriented programming and advertising. Opportunities to advertise to children further expanded with the explosive growth of the Internet, and thousands of child-oriented sites that feature advertising content designed specifically to influence child interest and consumption of the junk foods (Cater, 2013). Compounding the growth in channels for advertising targeting children has been another development: the privatization of children's media use. Currently, parents have little control over what marketers and advertisers present to children, which makes it difficult to control whatever marketers present to the minors. In a recent study, researchers found that the majority of all U.S. children have televisions in their bedrooms, and a significant percentage has unsupervised access to computers. As such, much of the media (and advertising) content viewed by the children is in contexts absent parental monitoring and supervision. These children interpret whatever they see in adverts to be the realty because of their limited knowledge and exposure.
The growths in advertising channels that reach children and the privatization of children's media use have resulted in a dramatic increase in advertising directly intended for the eyes and ears of children (Frenchete, 2012). Conscious of the weaknesses of modern parents and the contemporary parenting styles where parents prioritize the interests and wants of their young ones, advertisers are estimated to spend more than $12 billion every year to reach the youth market. Resultantly, children view more than 40,000 commercials within a single year. These figures represent dramatic increases over those from the 1970s, and serve as evidence that much as the society may want to regulate markers and advertisers, children may not be shielded effectively from the pervasive advertising and branding.
The Task Force on Advertising and Children, responding to its charge, began by reviewing research on the impact of advertising on children, with particular attention given both to the implications of children's cognitive development for understanding the potential effects of exposure to advertising and to specific harms that might result from exposure to advertising. There is a substantial body of scientific evidence addressing all of these basic issues. In contrast, concerns about advertising that have emerged because of new and changing technological capabilities, such as interactive forms of advertising and commercial internet based advertising that targets on children are yet to attract almost any empirical study (Mason, 2012).
According to Sooontae, Seung, & Eunhae (2014) marketers perceive of children as a current and future market and allocate enough resources to ensuring that they win the loyalty of the youngsters early enough. By targeting children, marketers secure the children’s loyalty and are assured of continued sales even after the children grown into adulthood. In America, this is being achieved by massive advertising targeted at children. Research has revealed that children between the ages of two and seventeen watch an annual average of 15,000 to 18,000 hours of television, compared with 12,000 hours spent per year in school. Children are also major targets for TV advertising, whose impact is greater than usual because there is an apparent lessening of influence by parents and others in the older generation. Worse still, many of the children interact with advertisements as early as at the age of two years. At such an age, brain development depends heavily on real human interactions and the children grow up to become adults whose spending behaviors are highly influence by the marketers.
Children and adverts targeted towards junk food
Evidently one can not escape the reality that we live in a commercial world. Living in a commercial word brings a lot of potential risk to children who are exposed to viewing harmful or in appropriate materials through television. It is a general agreement that children are potential consumers of certain products especially junk food thus they has a right to see or hear what some adverts have to say (Patti & Joanne, 2011). There have been a lot of debates arguing that advertising geared towards children should be abolished. These debates are backed by studies that suggest that adverts geared towards children especially on junk food affects their consumption in different ways.
According to Hebden & Grunciet, (2011) there are various strategies that advertise especially those advertising junk food uses to attract children into purchasing their products. One of the strategies is through the use of special effects such as filming sticks, soft lighting and other artificial sets which makes the products to look more attractive. These advertisements make use of super persons or cartoon characters. Cartoon characters are usually use because they tend to make a product to be more attractive. On the other hand, super-persons are normally used to promote products which make children think that they can be like them if they consume a product. Normally these televisions adverts are usually repetitive with the aim of making children to remember of recognize a product. Catchy tunes accompanied with jokes are usually used by advertisers to make children enjoy and like an advertisement. Such strategies reveals why it is hard for children to escape the advertisement.
A lot of studies that have been done on advertising junk food to children agree that commercial meant to popularize snacks and fast foods are the main strengths of advertising which mainly targets children’s. Research also proves that close to half of advertises target children’s on televisions are mainly devoted towards food and advertising (Valle, 2013). None of the television advertisement targets ethical food such as fruits and vegetables. These adverts usually associates their products with increment in physical activities, normally during the advertisement the adverts focus on the health benefits of these products gained through their consumption stressing that they contain essential nutrients.
According Haefner (2009) ethical issues that revolve around the area of advertising have increased arguably for a period of time mainly because they have played a major role in the increased obesity rates among children. Marketing foods with high sugar or fat contents have raised a lot of ethical controversies. Television promotions of fast foods are majorly considered as one of the main reasons why obesity levels are high in children. This is because they tolerate advertisements of junk foods. It is considered that it is a violation of ethical consumerism practices to advertise brands of foods which have a major influence on choices that children have especially if the product being advertised has more negative impacts.
Securing the future
Since the impact and influence of advertising, specifically to children is undeniably undesirable, it is necessary to develop and adopt mechanisms to ameliorate these effects. One of the approaches is to teach children how to understand the media messages that constantly barrage them. Concerned stakeholders in the society ought to engage in helping the kids to understand and interpret adverts and its intentions. Arens, Weigold, & Arens (2008) notes that, one has to le...