TV Advertising and its effect on childrenGroup 14

Abigail Snyder Group leader, How are you supposed to Choose Good Children’s Toys?

Kathryn Snodgrass Negative Advertising and its effect on childrenMichael Shannon Why Do We Advertise to Children?

Jon Smith Why Do We Advertise to Children?Tai Scelfo Media Violence Affects Children

David Simons Editor, introduction,conclusionDavid Shellaberger Only Good Things Happen When You Advertise to Kids.

Children and TV Advertising Today’s children are unique in many ways from previous generations, but perhaps the most influencingon our young children today is Television advertisements. "In 1997, the nation’s estimated 34 million childrenage 12 and under will have spent or influenced spending of a record $500 billion" (Horovitz 1997). There isobviously a great deal of interest in this subject, many books have been written, and many studies and reportsdone on the effects of TV advertising on children. In the following paragraphs we will look at some of thereasons why we advertise to children, some different positive and negative effects of TV advertisement onchildren, how people can cut through the hype of TV ads and pick good things for their children.

Why Do We Advertise to Children? Today, everywhere we go we see some type of advertising. A sale at the supermarket or a billboard fora radio station, are two of the many forms of advertisement. Currently, advertisements that target children arevery controversial.Marketers choose children because they can easily lure them in. Advertisers spent $105.97 billion in 1980.This number more than doubled in 2001 when it reached $230 billion (Laws, 2003). In the year 2000, theCensus reported 105 million househ0olds in America, meaning advertisers spend an average of $2,190 on onehousehold per year. Advertisers spend this much money because of television. The average child sees anestimate of more than 20,000 commercials every year - that works out to at least 55 commercials per day(Laws, 2003). Children will insist their parents purchase what they see or hear on television. In the 1960's,children had an influence on about $5 billion of their parent’s purchases. That figure increased to $50 billionin 1984 and tripled to $188 billion in 1997. James McNeal, a kids marketing expert, estimates children twelveand under will influence $500 billion of family purchases by the year 2000 (Laws, 2003).

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Children don't just have their parents buy their toys, but they make purchases of their own. Children'sspending has roughly doubled every ten years for the past three decades, and has tripled in the 1990's. Kidsages 4 to 12 spent $2.2 billion in 1968 and $4.2 billion in 1984. By 1994, the figure climbed to $17.1 billionand by 2002, their spending exceeded $40 billion. Kids direct buying power is expected to exceed $51.8billion by 2006 (Laws, 2003). No matter how you look at it, advertisers choose children because they are themost easily influenced and will spend their money if they find something interesting.

Only Good Things Happen When You Advertise to Kids. There are not many people in the world today that would disagree with the fact that children are ourfuture. Children are the ones that must carry on family traditions, continue to build and develop new publicprojects, and continue to learn and expand the knowledge of the human race. With that said it is important tounderstand that children are also future consumers. They are the engines that will drive the economy for thenext generation, for advertisers the future is now. Advertising to children has long been a very successful wayto build a solid consumer base that will win the minds of children in order to secure a lifetime of consumerpurchasing. It may sound heartless but the fact is it works, and advertising to children is big business.According to the article “Kids Upfront Outlook is Grim” by Wayne Friedman and David Goetzl, “Companiesspent about $800 million last year advertising on network, syndication, cable and local shows targeting kidsaged 2 to 14.” Eight hundred million is a lot of money, and advertisers want to see a return on that kind ofinvestment. According to Karen J. Pine and Avril Nash in the article “Dear Santa: The Effects of TelevisionAdvertising on Young Children,” people must “understand that the advertiser’s motive is to sell a product.” Itis easy to see how directly advertising to children can generate huge profits for companies, there by helpingour economy. According to Marci McDonald and Marianne Lavelle authors of the article, “Call itKid-Fluence,” James McNeal, a retired professor from Texas A&M University said, “children ages 4 to 12 lastyear spent $29 billion of their own money—from allowances, baby-sitting fees, and handouts their parentsdoled out on trips to the mall.” Now, it doesn’t take an economist to figure out that $29 billion in revenue onan advertising investment of $800 million equals big profits for manufactures of children’s products. Don’tthink that it’s just America that benefits from children’s advertising, it is a global business strategy, theEuropean Union estimates to generate between $620 to $930 million a year in revenue from marketingproducts to children. However, advertising to children does not only bring in funds from the children but moreimportantly, it generates what experts call “The Nag Factor.” The “Nag Factor” is when a child sees an ad fora product then cries and complains to a parent until the parent purchases the item. According to the article“Temptation-free Television for Children?” by Pascaline Dumont, Over half of all families have reported toagree with a child’s request just to avoid an argument. McNeal emphasizes the “Nag Factor” when he claimsthat, “2 to 12 year olds had an indirect impact on another $320 billion of household purchases. Over the lastfive years, there’s been a substantial increase in the amount of influence kids have on durable goods—cars,boats, big-ticket items. The power in the household is being ceded to the children.” John Geraci, vice presidentof youth research at Harris Interactive, agrees with McNeal and the importance of children’s influence whenhe states that a child’s spending is not near as economically lucrative as their influence over the householdsspending habits. However, according to Dumont, many American psychologists criticize advertising methods,claiming they border on mind control. Well, good for them! What better way to ensure a life long, loyalcostumer than to brainwash a child into a trained purchasing machine. According to the U.S. Consumers Unioneach child in America is exposed to 30,000 commercials a year. That’s a lot of brainwashing power and a lotof cash flow generated by these little future consumers. A good example of the buying power of children’sinfluence is that Gateway and Nickelodeon have made a deal to produce “Rugrats and Blue’s Cluescomputers that will be intended for children but marketed to children and parents. This is a potential hugemoney maker, as kids these days are much more computer literate than their parents. According to McDonaldand Lavelle, “In today’s families, many kids also serve as chief technology officers. When it comes tocomputers and other electronic purchases, even 7-year-olds may boast more expertise than Mom or Pop. A1999 survey by Yankelovich found that 60 percent of parents don’t shop for technology without consultingtheir kids.” That’s just another reminder of the tremendous positive effects of advertising to children. The children are our future and an important part of the present as well. We must understand the

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importance of a child’s role in today’s world and today’s economy. Advertising to children has long been apart of the free market form of society and must be embraced as another part of a complex economic enginethat runs day and night to provide a better life style for us all. Advertising to children generates jobs, injectsmoney into the economy, and instills in children at a young age the importance of the freedom of choice. Italso develops a child’s ability to understand the value of a dollar and teaches them that individuals canachieve anything if they are willing to pay the price.

Negative Advertising and its effect on children

Advertising is everywhere you look, whether it is in the newspaper you pick up daily or on thatbillboard you see while driving down the highway. Some people may say that they are not in fact influencedby the advertising that is thrown at them each day, and that they do not fall into it, but everyone does. Manychildren are often the target for most advertisers, because they know if they hound at their parents enoughthey will give in and buy their product, and everyone will be happy. Some advertisers try to portray morepositive items to children, but many children are overcome with the negative ways of advertising. Withtelevision being the most popular way to advertise to young ones, the average American child may view asmany as 40,000 television commercials every year (Strasburger, 2001). Schools are now even advertising tochildren without them being aware that they are actually doing it. Food, clothing, toys are just a few of themany types of advertisements being influenced upon children daily. Many advertisements being directedtowards children are that of food. Many of these food advertisements that children are being exposed to areproducts that are of low nutritional value. McDonalds spends roughly $570 million a year on advertising(McNeal 2001). Everyone knows that McDonalds is not a good place to find much nutritional value, and inturn will only lead to obesity in children. Now in many schools students are being rewarded coupons for PizzaHut, and McDonalds for doing a good job in school. Why not reward these children with money towardsfurthering their education? Many educational posters in schools are advertising candy to children, when it willonly rot their teeth and make them gain weight. Along with food advertisements many young children areeven being shown cigarette advertisements which promote many young people smoking and enjoyingthemselves. Well when a young child sees something like that they can only think but to go try it themselvesand maybe they will have fun and enjoy themselves. Children that are trying smoking are becoming youngerand younger. Smoking has nothing good to offer to children but health problems later on in life. Televisionimpacts children the most as far as advertising goes. Many children as young as three years old recognizebrand named products and clothing. When these children spend time watching so much television they cannothelp but be influenced by it, and want what they see. These children become so obsessed with having whatthey see on television that they continue to hassle their parents until they get it. Some parents may even havetrouble keeping up with the amount of money their child thinks that they need so they may have the newestproducts out there. These children that are watching more television, are going to want more toys seen inadvertisements and eat more advertised food than children who do not watch as much television (Strasburger,2001). Although many advertisements are negatively affecting children there are those few advertisementsout there that are beneficial. For example the ones that are selling educational books for children, and othertypes of learning materials. These products are nothing but beneficial to younger children. Parents need to bemore aware and cautious of what their children are watching and how much of it they are watching. Limittheir television time with something a little more educational like reading a book or playing outside.

How are you supposed to Choose Good Children’s Toys?

There are so many toys out there for children to play with, but how do youdecide if it is a good toy or a bad toy? You can always read the box and try toget some idea what the toy does before giving it to your child, but how do youknow if that will be enough? There are a lot of ways you can look at this, butwhen it comes down to it there are more and more toys being made everyday

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that can influence the way your children think or even act. According to theAmerican Heritage College Dictionary part of the definition of toys is, an objectfor children to play with (1455). But today a child can play with anything from apiece of paper to a computer. How are we supposed to decide what would bebest for them? According to The Parenting Network, they feel that home made toys are the bestfor children because they feel it increases creativity among children under theage of five. Also you can observe your child playing with and making the toy.This way you know exactly what is in the toy and that nothing harmful can comefrom the product they produce.Personally, I feel that you should use your best judgment on something good foryour child. A toy can only be safe if you make it safe and provide the right kind ofteaching for your child to understand how the toy is used. There is not a really aright or wrong answer, but just to use your best judgment and know that youtaught your child how to play correctly.

Media Violence Affects ChildrenOver the years there has been an increasing amount of violence in media directed towards children. Therehave also been an increasing number of violent acts directed towardchildren and the high degree of these acts that children see on television, in movies, computer games,videotapes, and the large number of violent toys. The National Association for the Education of YoungChildren (NAEYC) feels that the increasingnumber of violence endangers children from growing up in a mentally stable way. The NAEYC came up withthree consistent problems when children watch television violence: children will notice others pain less, theymay become scared of things in the world they live in, and they are more likely to show aggressive behaviortowards other people. When children see violence all around them in media, they will feel that violence is theanswer when they are angry or disturbed. NAEYC would like to start putting limits on the amount of violenceput on television during the time when children will most likely be watching. They also would like to limit theamount of advertising on television during these times, so that kids can tell the advertisements and thetelevision show apart. Teachers and parents can help get rid of the amount of violence that is shown tochildren. Teachers can help teach children that television is not real and that violence should not be theanswer to solve problems. Parents can regulate the television shows that they are allowing their children towatch and make sure they are not watching shows that teach themviolence. The problem of violence shown to children in the media will not be solved easily. This violence doesn’tonly show how violent our society is, but it helps make our society more violent. If we continue to allow theviolence on television that is consistently shown to our children, then our future nation will have a largequantity of angry adults and criminals.

In Conclusion In the preceding paragraphs, we have seen some of the reasons why we advertise to children, somedifferent positive and negative effects of TV advertisement on children, How people can cut through the hypeof TV ads and pick good things for their children. “Infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are spending far moretime watching DVDs and clicking remote controls and computer mice than reading books, according to aKaiser Foundation study released yesterday The effect of such high-intensity media exposure is unclear, researchers said, but what is clear is thatthe under-6 set is becoming far more media savvy than anyone expected. “The last time we did a big study onkids and media, about 5 years ago, we didn’t think to go younger than two because they didn’t think there was

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anything there" said the study’s lead author, Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser foundation. "Butthat’s really changed. And based on what we've now found with the 6-month to 2 year olds, if we do this kindof study again, we'd probably go down to birth." (Washington post 2003).

References

Washington Post (October 29, 2003) Under-6 set tunes in tv’s not books Toledo Blade, 153(302), PA 1/5 National Association for the Education of YoungChildren.(2003), Available online: http://www.naeyc.org Kilbourne, Jean. (2003) “Own this Child” Available online:www4.cord.edu/english/stevier/ho--feb17_sample_essay3_draft_outline.htm Wesolowsky, Tuck (2003)“Advertisements target young children” Available online:www.rferl.com/nca/features/2000/03/F.RU.000316151205.html Horovitz, Bruce. (December 18, 1997). "Cashing in on kids Retailers in search of customers for life," USAToday, PA 1A. Dumont, Pascaline. “Temptation-free Television for Children?” UNESCO Courier 54. 9 (2001) : 44 Friedman, Wayne and Goetzl, David. “Kids’ Upfront Outlook is Grim.” Advertising Age 72. 11 (2001) : 3 McDonald, Marci and Lavelle, Marianne. “Call it Kid-fluence.” U.S. News & World Report 131. 4 (2001) : 32 Pine, Karen J and Nash, Avril. “Dear Santa: The Effects of Television Advertising on Young Children.”International Journal of Behavioral Development 26. 6 (2002) : 529 The American Heritage College Dictionary. Boston: American Heritage, 2002 NYBOR,LLC (1996-2002) Available online:http://www.robynsnest.com/toysafety.htm. McNeal, James (2001). Quoted in McDonald M, Lavelle M. Call it kid-fluence. U.s. News & World Report, July 30, 2001, p.32.Strasburger, Victor C. (2001, June). Children and TV advertising: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Journal of Developmental & BehavioralPediatrics, 22, 185. Education Digest (2000, January).Junk-food marketing goes elementary. p, 32.

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