Advertising to Children Notes Essay

* Children cannot comprehend advertizing mess ripens due to their novel age. * Children dont empathize persuasive inclination until they ar eight or nine years old and that it is unethical to advertise to them originally then. According to Karpatkin and Holmes from the Consumers Union, Young squirtren, in classicular, establish difficulty in distinguishing betwixt advertising and genuinelyity in ads, and ads can distort their view of the terra firma. to boot churlren be un adapted to evaluate advertising claims. Beder, 1998) * Older children pay slight economic aid to advertisements and atomic number 18 more(prenominal) subject to variantiate surrounded by the ads and TV programs but they ar to a fault easy prey for advertisers. Around puberty, in their early teens, children atomic number 18 forming their feature identities and they are higher(prenominal)ly vulner satisfactory to air pressure to conform to group standards and mores. At this age they fee l insecure and fate to feel that they belong to their friction match group.Advertising manipulates them by means of their insecurities, verifyking to confine normality for them influencing the way they view and obtain appropriate models for the adult world and under(a)mining fundamental human values in the germinatement of the identity of children. Advertisements actively encourage them to seek happiness and esteem through consumption. (Beder, 1998) * Younger children a lot do not understand the persuasive intent of advertisements, and hence far cured children probably ready difficulty understanding the intent of newer trade techniques that conf engross the line between commercial-grade and program content. Calvert, 2008)* unmatched key area in research on the effect of advertising on children has been depth psychology of age-based changes in childrens ability to understand commercial messages, particularly their intent. earlier they constitute the age of eight, children believe that the purpose of commercials is to help them in their acquire decisions they are unaware that commercials are designed to persuade them to buy specialized products. The shifts that take propose in childrens understanding of commercial intent are better explained put on theories of cognitive development. Calvert, 2008) * During the stage of pre operative thought, roughly from age two to age seven, young children are perceptually bound and stress on properties such as how a product looks. Young children also use animistic thinking, believing that imaginary events and characters can be real. For instance, during the Christmas season, telecasting is flooded with commercials that foster an crap-to doe with in the toys that Santa ordain bring in his sleigh pulled by flying commanddeer. Young children buy in to these fantasies and the consumer agriculture they represent.Preoperational modes of thought put young children at a distinct loss in understanding c ommercial intent and, thus, in being up to(p) to make informed decisions about requests and purchases of products. (Calvert, 2008) * With the advent of concrete operational thought, between age seven and age eleven, children get off to understand their world more realistically. They understand, for example, that perceptual manipulations do not change the underlying properties of objects. More important, they begin to go beyond the instruction given in a commercial and grasp that the intent of advertisers is to give away products.By the stage of formal operational thought, about age twelve and upward, adoles cen ages can reason abstractly and understand the motives of advertisers even to the point of emergence cynical about advertising. (Calvert, 2008) * Increased use of the meshwork to target children offers increasing opportunities for advertisers to convey their messages. * A new arena for advertising is the net. It is estimated that about four million children are using t he meshing worldwide and this figure is bound to increase dramatically over the beside few years. Beder, 1998) * As the enormous increase in the repress of getable television channels has led to smaller audiences for each channel, digital interactive technologies invite simultaneously opened new routes to narrow cast to children, thereby creating a growing media space just for children and childrens products. (Calvert, 2008)* Newer marketing approaches have led to online advertising and to so-called stealth marketing techniques, such as embedding products in the program content in films, online, and in video games. Calvert, 2008) * telly has long been the staple of advertising to children and early days. Children view approximately 40,000 advertisements each year. The products marketed to children sugarcoated cereals, unbendable food restaurants, candy, and toyshave remained relatively constant over clock prison term. But traffickers are now unioniseing these same kinds of products to children online. (Calvert, 2008) * Rapid growth in the number of television stations and online venues has also led advertisers to market instantaneously to children and juvenility.Because children and youth are heavy media users and early weders of newer technologies, media marketing and advertising campaigns using two(prenominal) television and newer media are efficient pathways into childrens homes and lives. Although television is still the preferred medium for reaching children and youth, marketers are exploring how to reach this age group online using cell phones, iPods, game platforms, and oppo billet digital devices. Banner ads, for example, which resemble tralatitious billboard ads but market a product across the crownwork of an Internet page, appear on most webpages.And advergames integrate products such as cereal and candy into online video games to sell products to youth. (Calvert, 2008) * Although television is still the plethoric venue for adve rtising, marketers are exploring new ways to market to children and adolescents through online media and radio set devices, often using stealth techniques whereby consumers are immersed in gradeed environments, oftentimes without knowing that they are being exposed to sophisticated marketing campaigns. Marketers carefully prove children and adolescents interest patterns, focusing on games for tweens, as well as communication software for teens.Tracking these patterns provides extensive information that marketers now analyze in aggregate form, but that can, in the future, be used for one-on-one relational marketing strategies directed at specific individuals. (Calvert, 2008) * Online interactive agents are a practical(prenominal) form of stealth advertising. Marketers program robots, or bots, to solution? to surfers who initiate a conversation. Such bots are programmed to respond to users in a one-on-one relational way that builds brand loyalty, as for instance, with virtual bartenders who chew up to those who visit their sites.These alcohol-related websites feature humor, games, and hip language to appeal to minors. (Calvert, 2008) * Many companies have realized that children, particularly tweens and teens, enjoy using technology for education, communication, and pastime purposes. The Internet allows tweens and teens to become involved with, explore, and learn about products when and where they want to (Schumann and Thorson, 2007).* Some marketers advise that the best way to engage children through the Internet is by the use of viral or buzz marketing strategies that encourage children to email their avourite commercials and other product information to each other (Schumann and Thorson, 2007). As the Internet has go along to grow in prominence and commercial strength, concerns about this medium have grown accordingly, particularly as they relate to children and teens (Schumann and Thorson, 2007).* Typically, these concerns focus around issues of ti me spent on the Internet and its effect on intellectual and accessible development, the vulnerability of children to advertisers tactics and childrens access to inappropriate content (Schumann and Thorson, 2007). One of the concerns often voiced about children and Internet advertising is how much time children are exposed to advertising messages man online and also how much attention they pay to these messages (Schumann and Thorson, 2007). * Because exposure to Internet advertising is not regulated like advertising on broadcast television, there is concern about the essence of exposure that a child whitethorn have to advertising messages. On television, a single advertisement for a single brand may last 30-60 seconds before switching to another advertisement.On the internet, however, a child can die hours on a single web site playing games, chatting to friends, catching up on product news, all while being continually exposed to a range of persuasive messages for that brand (Sch umann and Thorson, 2007). * While television and other media have long been used to sell to children, the Internet presents some important differences. For example, television advertisers are asked to maintain a clear separation between content and advertising Internet advertisers are not.And television advertisers are prohibited from using their corporate logos both as content and pitchmen at the same time Internet advertisers hardiness no such restrictions. As a result, Tony the Tiger has free rein among the games, quizzes and activities on Kelloggs site, while on television he is qualified to station breaks (Carleton, 2000). * Today, children spend an estimated $130 million annually, and bring another $ergocalciferol million in household purchases.And the Internet is a great place to reach those young consumers (Carleton, 2000). * Unlike conventional media, the Internet allows children and adolescents to access different kinds of content, and a specific characteristic is that this can be done in privacy, without the knowledge of parents (Marshall, 2010). * The most influential sources of information for children today making decisions and retentivity contact with peers are media, meaning that children receive far more information from media than from parents and schools.This phenomenon has been called the parallel school of media, which means that children and adolescents will daily use up several hours on various media (Marshall, 2010). * Children can very quickly adopt and use new media technology and companies and advertising agencies are extremely advance(a) and creative when it is a question of targeting children with commercial messages (Marshall, 2010).* Children are targeted because of the amount of bullion they spend on themselves, the crop they have on their parents and because of the money they will spend when they grow up (three different markets). Young children are increasingly the target of advertising and marketing because of the amou nt of money they spend themselves, the influence they have on their parents spending (the nag factor) and because of the money they will spend when they grow up. (Beder, 1998) * Children represent three different markets. In addition to the direct money that children spend and the money they influence, children also represent a ordinal major market and perhaps the most significant and that is the future market.Advertisers live that brand loyalties and consumer habits formed when children are young and vulnerable will be carried through to adulthood. (Beder, 1998) * In Australia, children under 18 have an average $31. 60 to spend each week and they influence more than 70 per cent of their parents clothes and fast food purchases. (Beder, 1998) * Both the discretionary income of children and their power to influence parent purchases have increased over time. (Calvert, 2008) * The affluence of todays children and adolescents has made youth a market eminently worthy of chase by busine sses. Calvert, 2008)* Evolution of a child consumer. (Beder, 1998) From age 1 incident Parents and Observing. Children are taken with their parents to supermarkets and other stores where all sorts of goodies are displayed. By the time a child can sit erect, he or she is position in his or her culturally be observation post high atop a shopping cart. From this vantage point the child waistband safety in proximity to parents but can see for the set-back time the wonderland of marketing. From age 2 Accompanying Parents and Requesting.Children begin to ask for things that they see and make connections between television advertising and store contents. They pay more attention to those ads and the list of things they want increases. At the same time, the youngster is erudition how to get parents to respond to his or her wishes and wants. This may take the form of a grunt, whine, scream, or gestureindeed some tears may be necessarybut eventually almost all children are able on a re gular basis to persuade Mom or Dad to buy something for them. From age 3 Accompanying Parents and Selecting with Permission.Children are able to come down from the shopping trolley and make their own choices. They are able to recognise brands and locate goods in the store. At this point the child has completed many connections, from advertisements to wants, to stores, to displays, to packages, to retrieval of want-satisfying products. For many parents this is a pleasing experience. ditto mark for the marketers, for it signals the beginning of the childs understanding of the want-satisfaction process in a market-driven society. From age 4 Accompanying Parents and make In hooklike Purchases.The final whole tone in their development as a consumer is learning to pay for their purchases at the checkout counter. From age 5 Going to the Store Alone and Making Independent Purchases. By the age of eight children make most of their own buying decisions. * Integrating a variety of diffe rent theoretical perspectives, Patti Valkenburg and Joanne hazan advanced a developmental model? of how children become consumers * In the stolon stage (birth to two years), toddlers and infants have desires and preferences, but they are not til now true consumers because they are not yet truly goal-directed in their product choices. During the second stage (two to five years), preschoolers nag and negotiate, asking for and even demanding certain products.At this point in their development, young children do not understand the persuasive intent of commercials they focus on the attractive qualities of products and cannot sustain their minds off the products for long. These developmental characteristics make them extremely vulnerable to commercial advertisements. By the end of this stage, children replace whining and throwing tantrums to get a desired product with more effective negotiation.In early elementary school (five to eight years), children reach the stage of adventure and first purchases. They begin to make clearer distinctions between what is real and what is imaginary, their attention spans are longer, and they make their first purchases outside the company of their parents. * In the final stage (eight to twelve years), elementary school children are attuned to their peer groups opinions. Their particular skills to assess products emerge, and their understanding of others emotions improves considerably.In the later years of this stage, interest shifts from toys to more adult-like products, such as music and sports equipment. Although childrens consumer behaviors continue to develop during the adolescent years, the foundation is laid in these early years with a progression from simple wants and desires to a search to fulfill those desires to making in- dependent choices and purchases to evaluating the product and its competition * (All Beder, 1998). The ability of elementary children to recognize both traditional online advertising such as banner and button ads and embedded advertising that is part of advergames seems to be limited.With only about a third of the children able to accurately identify advertising, a large percentage is left unable to identify advertising content. * Childrens culture is increasingly dominated and defined by market interests, as advertisers, childrens industries, and other producers of consumer goods clamour to restrain the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of this profitable demographic. * The worldly concern of online communities and spaces for children and youth has thus become a growing and lucrative endevour for many media, toy and food companies.This article provides a critical analysis of one such online community called NeoPets, whose premise is that users create or adopt a virtual pet to nuture. * Acquisition of currency (called NeoPoints), gained by playing various games, exchanging or selling items, filling out marketing surveys, and entering contests and games of chance, allows for the purchase o pet food and other virtual consumer products. * Neopets is part of a landscape of global, youthful, digital entertainment products that have emerged with the Internet and technological convergence.In its few years of operation, 16 million users have created Neopets. According to promotional material, Neopets is one of the fastest growing Internet youth communities. * The neopets site generates revenue through a scheme it calls immersive marketing, a scheme similar to product placement in films. Food manufacturers and entertainment giants have thus flocked to neopets, eager to reach this youthful market through insinuation of their brand in games and activities on the site. * Neopets generates a substantial part of its revenue by providing market research and consumer studies of its users. The neopets website exemplifies the new childrens digital media culture- a culture which fosters deepening levels of intimacy between marketer and children by dissolving traditional ba rriers between content and commerce.* In neopia, products and brand names are integrated within the many games and features that are part of the rich content on the site. Advertisers and entertainment companies such as Walt Disney, McDonalds and Mattel have flocked to Neopets, eager to reach the tween and teen market. * The majority of neopets users are under 18 years of age, with 39% below the age of 12 and 40% between 13-17 years old. Neopets conforms to modern conventions found in Saturday-morning cartoon series, comics, childrens advertising and product design the use of a brightly colourful palate, with a predominance of primary and secondary colours, and highly-stylized bubbly graphics.* Immersive advertising directly integrates a sponsors product or service into the activities functional with in the site. Advertisers hope that immersive advertising campaigns will encourage children to play with the products, thus enabling them to later identify their brand. As children and youth continue to elaborate their access and presence on the Internet, they adopt participatory roles in the creation of online content and contribute in meaningful ways to online environments, including games and communities.* As children are sucked into the commercial marker in an increasingly competitive cradle-to-grave branding scheme, neopets strategy of immersive advertising amidst a fantastical community concerned with the ethos of acquisition and entrepreneurialism as entertainment provides a salient example of childhood as a cultural space constituted by consumerism. Neopets global marketing strategy of cross-media licensing and integrated marketing is a blatant example of branding childrens media environments. Slapping consumer culture onto childrens culture means we are denying children a period of autonomy and agency in creating their own spaces.