Exploring The Reasons Why Advertisements Are Targeting Children More And More

The Upsurge in Attention on the Role of Children in Marketing

In the last two to three decades ago there has been an upsurge attention focussing on the role of children in the profit-making marketplace in addition to marketing focussed on kids. Similarly, more and more advertising are being wide-open to children both directly and indirectly. Research shows that conscious persons are not likely to buy many products fast enough on their own (Aichner, 2014). As a result, salespersons have incorporated a tactic to influence the emotions of a customer scantiness as well as hunting as a way of promoting products to relieve customer’s their undesired self-image. Accordingly, in the recent past this technique has picked momentum by even surpassing the expectations of the marketer. The corner stone to this success was the advent as well as ultimate progression of the TV in almost each household. Ultimately, the progression of the TV has was quickly taken by marketers enabling them to get more and more products to the access of more viewers both young and old. Thus, this has enabled marketers massively supply to both adults and children in the market. However, with time marketing and advertising companies are have shifted their concentration to children exclusively. Consequently, these adverts have powerfully pervaded our today young people and particularly kids. Unfortunately, the majority of these products advertised to children are not healthy at all. Instead, the advertised products only support fatness among children (Cairns, Angus, Hastings, & Caraher, 2013). Quite often children are not able to understand the convincing target of these adverts. Making matters worse the government is doing nothing to protect and control children from the immensely commercialised environment.

Accordingly, novel form of advertising and what is considered as a bigger manifestation of profitable forces in children’s lives has stimulated much focus on the role of children in the commercial environment as shown recently by Bailey (2011) in the UNCEF report on materialism, inequality and well-being. As a result of Bailey (2011) report it led to various new measures such as setting up media regulations to safeguard children, support for stricter advertising guidelines, allowing followers of the website to report unsuitable material online, in promoting video game, in film and television. On the same note, Australia has banned the employment of children below the age of 17 years as brand ambassadors (Gbadamosi, 2010). The rising concern about the intensifying adolescent obesity levels in the United States has resulted in the Federal Trade Commission and consumer groups filing a complaint against Pepsi Company for involving itself in unfair and deceptive marketing practices (Center for Digital Democracy, & Consumer Action, 2011). 

The aim of this research is to explore the reasons as to why advertisement are marketing more and more on children. The reason of picking on this topic is because I have a special interest in advertising, its intentions and the outcome on children. Also, I would to understand how advertisement are structured to look appealing to children.   

At the time of conducting this research I will make use of the following research objectives which will act as my guideline to make sure that I confine myself to the research subject matter. Therefore, this study will comprise two type of objectives general research objective and specific research objectives.

• To find out the reasons as why marketers are adverting more on children

• To investigate how marketers structure their products to look appealing to children
• To determine the marketing techniques used by advertisers to market on children

1. What are the reasons that make marketers to advertise more on children?
2. How does marketers structure their products to ensure they look appealing to children?
3. Which marketing techniques are mostly used by advertisers to target on children?

The Progression of TV and Its Role in Marketing to Children

According to Calvert, (2008) the scholars note that children play a key role towards shaping the buying tend of most homes, which traverse from selection of meals, acquisition of automobiles and place to go for holidays. As a result, children play an incredible impact in many households. For instance, Browns a professor in Marketing from Harvard University argue that children of age between four and twelve have significant influence over one billion dollar spend by homes on purchasing products annually. Thus, advertisers have realised the potential that children play in influencing the entire household buying decisions. Indeed, family dynamics have changed over the past few years. Pettigrew, Chapman, Miller, & Thomas, (2014) States that due to parents’ behaviour of overvaluing children, it has changed their authority. Certainly, codes are becoming blurry something that is echoed in the advertising sector. As a result of parents overvaluing their children I has led to children undermining parental power, most decisions regarding selection of meals, among other things has been dominated by children in many households. Research has shown that parents are now being influenced more by their children on matters of making purchases and this has been unmasked through the advertising discourse.

To be efficient, advertising promotions need to get kids to join the wish of particular brand produce, remember and recognize the merchandise and buy it. Advertisers are aware how well teens apprehend the persuasive intention of ads facilitates the success of commercials. In light of this, some of the effectiveness adverts techniques include attention, appreciation and retention, understanding of commercial targets and merchandise desires and acquisitions.

Attention. Adverts that are intended to appeal and grasp the attention of kids are characterized by lively sound effects, actions, and movements, as well as loud music. For instance, Tony the Tiger is an animated character that bursts on the display broadcasting that Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes are ‘GRRRRRRRREAT!!’ Stevens, a professor in psychology from Harvard University, states that pre-schoolers pay more attention adverts complete of sound effects, actions and movement and flamboyant music as compared to low-basic advertisements. Acoustic features are specifically significant in influencing kid’s attention (Bassiouni, & Hackley, 2016). On the other hand, Calvert, (2008), argue that children between age three to eight are much attracted to commercials that have higher acoustic, unlike video complexity. Accordingly acoustic features have more recruiting control as compared to visual features because exciting sounds are cable of influencing kids who do not like watching the TV by directing their chromatic responsiveness towards it. These findings Piaget’s discernment that kids are specifically focused on the attention-attainment perceptual abilities of demonstrations. Marketers use kid’s attention patterns to divulge how well children are capable of making differences between television programs and adverts while presenting commercials.

Recognition and retention. Marketers use both auditory and visual fabrication skills and replications to heighten kid’s commemoration of the content. Watkins, Aitken, Thyne, Robertson, & Borzekowski, (2017), proceeds that kindergarten and pre-schoolers have a high aptitude to recall food products are marketed through audio-visual than products presented in only an acoustic form. Therefore, marketers use acoustic features like jingles frequently in ads to reach child viewers. Similarly, Watkins, Aitken, Thyne, Robertson, & Borzekowski, (2017) says that song rhymes and lyrics can replay in kid’s minds, leading to spontaneous rehearsals and content memorizing. Once kids are exposed to a similar advert frequently, it heightens their probability to recall the advertised product.

Novel Forms of Advertising and Its Impact on Children

Understanding of commercial intent. As earlier illustrated, kids below the age of eight are unable to comprehend that the intention of advertisements is to convince them to purchase a specific good over another; and as a substitute they look at ads a way to inform them concerning the massive numbers of gorgeous brands that they are likely to purchase (Marshall, 2010). Product requests and purchases. Story & French, (2004) states that repetition exclusively enhances kid’s demands for and buying of particular toy, beverage, and food products. 

Advertisers apply some techniques to make that their products are appealing to children. Some of the used techniques comprise repetition, attention-seeking fabrication features, proprietary characters and rewards, superstar endorsements, brand placement, viral advertising, wired interactive go-betweens, audio-visual news releases, integrated advertising approaches and Software and spyware tracking (Kelly, Halford, Boyland, Chapman, Bautista-Castaño, Berg, & Grammatikaki, 2010).      

Repetition: repetition entails repeating a similar commercial message over and over. As a result of the repetitive message it creates familiarity with the product thus it increases the probability of buying the product.

Attention-seeking fabrication structures: receptiveness seeking fabrication features are intended to fascinate teens’ curiosity in the marketable material. Some of these features that are immensely focused in children’s television adverts comprise rapid pricing, loud music, action and movement and sound effects (Kelly, Halford, Boyland, Chapman, Bautista-Castaño, Berg, & Grammatikaki, 2010).

Proprietary characters and rewards: Traditionally efficacious advertising promotions frequently make use of exclusive characters, that is, mass media personalities which are allied to business, thus promote its trademark name – which is appealing to children and youngsters (Hebden, King, & Kelly, 2011). The right to use prevalent TV animation characters such as Nickelodeon’s Sponge-Bob Square Pants, which are certified at feet to different corporations, aid in selling a range of products from cereals to vocations. On the other hand, animated characters like Tony the Tiger are spokes-men for a particular brand, in this regard Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. Likewise, the Ronald McDonald character is applied to market the McDonald’s labels, which comprise Happy Meals. Accordingly, advertisers, as well as marketers, related products and activities that the intent to trade using humorous characters to skyrocket curiosity in such goods. Marketers use alike characters in virtual marketing promotions as well as in television ads. Additionally, they use rewards like the small toy in the McDonald’s Happy Meal with the intent to heighten brand acquisitions by children on television and online.

Celebrity endorsements: Also, celebrity endorsements aid in brand selling. For example, athletes are illustrated on boxes and cereals and also appear on screen putting on and using particular sporty garment and gears (Hebden, King, & Kelly, 2011). Consequently, the kind who fancy in these superstars is anticipated to buy these merchandises.

Merchandise placement: Character assignment was initially realized as a prosperous advertising approach way back in the 1980s with the E.T. character in Steven Spielberg’s film of a similar title ate Reese’s Pieces, which resulted in a countrywide prickle in the merchandise consumptions. Furthermore, both movies and television programs not only associated brands with characters but also have become characters. For example, Twinkle the Kid, Charlie the Tuna as well as Mrs. Butterworth competition to counter the foul product X in the FoodFlight movie! These advertising acquaintance heightens a customer’s awareness with a given brand and can lead to a complimentary judgment concerning the product (Bassiouni, & Hackley, 2016).

Measures Taken to Protect Children from Commercialized Environments

In the present world, advertisers and marketers are targeting children as their primary consumer because of several reasons. Today, the unrestricted income among children as well as their clout to sway parent consumptions has dramatically skyrocketed (Boyland, Harrold, Kirkham, & Halford, 2012). Additionally, there is a vast rise in the number of TV stations availability something that has compelled a smaller audience for every channel; as a result, it has created an expanding space exclusively for youngsters and teen’s products. Indeed, children figure the purchasing pattern of approximately, all households across the world. Advertisers have realized that children are kings in their homes. Accordingly, children represent different markets. Children are an influence market because they are capable of influencing house purchasing (Mills, 2014). Similarly, children are in possession of money on their own to spend, and children act as impending market since they are open to advertising campaigns designed to shape them into prospect consumers.

Furthermore, following the pester power philosophy in the modern world, children have more decision making control in households as compared to the past generations. This follows that children are vocal regarding what they would desire their parents to purchase. In this case, ‘Pesters Power’ is the kid’s aptitude to badger their parents to buy products that they could otherwise have not purchased (Boyland, Harrold, Kirkham, & Halford, 2012). Also, children have pocket money. Parents sturdily have the yearning to prepare their children for parenthood self-sufficiency. As a result, this longing takes the practice of giving services to children to ensure that they can survive minus the help of parentages. Being a customer is one of the skills offered by parents. Therefore, children are taught how to become consumers at an early age through the desire and inspiration of parentages, which provide children with the required financial upkeep in the form of pocket money. The money given to children makes them become a market for products such as toys, sweets, and soft drinks just to mention a few which they buy for self-sufficiency and self-gratification (Speers, 2008).                           

This report will use secondary data as the source of information in analysing how advertising and marketing is massively directed towards children. Therefore, the secondary sources of data used include:

• Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Literature review of past research on similar research topic
• Research reports about advertising of fast food to children on Australian television
• Media report on the subject matter
• All advertisement for food as well as non-food products broadcasts

The BioMed Central public health report was carried out for 60 days where TV ads for beverages and food were bought from a broadcasting monitoring corporation. The data covered TV program of the entire day for each day on the four major free to air stations in Australia’s major capital cities Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane from 1st September 2010 to 31st October 2010. They bought data comprised all innovative content, data planning, and broadcasting appointment expenses.

The coding structure was advanced that involved items connecting to features of the compulsory and voluntary guidelines. “These ads were scrutinised by two of the authors to ascertain the advertising practises employed and to categorise the advertised foods as fit or not healthy by means of the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (Mills, 2014). The researchers coded the figures individually and later related all coding. In areas of differences established in both coding sets, the authors had to review the ads revising the classifications from the Children’s Television Standards that enabled reaching a given. The statistics was examined alongside the programmes for C periods offered by every newscaster to the ACMA. As a result, the reports were attained with the aid of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, who communicated to the newscaster asking for authorisation before freeing the programs (Michele, 2012).” Additionally, the data was evaluated alongside voluntary production codes, the data contained within the industry breaches reports and the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (Boyland, & Whalen, 2015). 

For the sixty days of gathering data, 426 beverage and food ads was revealed during C episode across five Australia’s major cities (approximately 85 for each city). The coverages interrelated to 47 separate marketing promotions (Michele, 2012). The results shows that “there was 951 violation in total of the joint guidelines recognised in sixty days of kids’ programs, which involved 619 violations of the compulsory rules Children’s Television Standards (CTS) as well as 332 violations of the unpaid code of practice the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) the Australian Quick Service Restaurant Industry’s and (QSRI)”. The increased rate of violation against the figures of publicities seem to possess two key sources. In the initial case, there is considerable reduplication of requests among the compulsory and voluntary conventions. Consequently, one disclosure of one promotion could be detailed as several violations since it violated various requests inside and among the codes (Kelly et al., 2016). Secondly, incidence of heightened recurrence levels of ads presenting several violations over the period of collecting data. Accordingly table one below illustrates that more than 50% of the promotion which took place during C episode came from only two corporations that is Golden Circle  and Simplot. “There was only two among the five greatest promoters during C episodes which are McDonald’s, and Simplot which were participants to both voluntary principles” (Michele, 2012).

Table 1: Top five heaviest advertisers during C periods

Regarding the above results, it reveals that a considerable figure of violation of the Children’s Television Standards registered. Table 2 below illustrates that there were several violation of CTS 29 (“During any 30 minutes of a C period a licensee may broadcast the same advertisement no more than twice” (Michele, 2012)). The results shows that these breaches were only experienced in two corporations and one newscaster.

Table 2: breaches of children Television Standard 29

The figures indicates that the present Australia governing structure is not offering extensive defence for kids from disclosure to TV marketing for insalubrious foods. Similarly, there are also breaches in terms of regulations which are also leaving kids to be exposed to advertising practises like spokes characters as well as quality offers in promotional for insalubrious foods (Sacks et al., 2015). Regardless of outcry for additional marketing rules to safeguard kids from insalubrious food marketing in Australia, it is beyond reasonable doubt that the present control measures are not implemented successfully and are also broken and not scrutinized well. Indeed, this is an indication that more could have been realised through implementing tougher control around the current regulations. Nevertheless, this is challenging since the present regulatory system are built on schedule of kids’ watching period which is unavailable for public inspection (Mackie et al., 2015). While individual programs are there in the television viewing guidelines, it is not sufficient enough to generate the needed information for broader surveillance. On the same note, initially the ACMA was not aware if it could be in the position to give entree to the programs hence written authorisation could only be gotten from each newscaster for such info to be made accessible for this research. It is important that any marketing organisation directives becomes apparent and open for inspection by the public.  

Gantt chart for the Project

The budget costs for the research project activities is shown in the table below:

Conclusion

In conclusion, past studies as well as the findings from this research reveals that indeed, advertising companies are targeting children immensely. Nevertheless, this practice is a breach of the Australian Children’s Television Standards. On the same note, advertising and marketing to children is the cause of the increase in obesity cases among Australian kids and the world as a whole.  

In order for advertising companies to refrain from advertising unhealthy products to children the Australian government should set tougher regulations against companies that breach Children’s Television Standards.  

The study utilised a data gathering time which is unable to capture cyclical changes. Moreover, it has to be realised that the newscaster’s planned C periods is not the only time that kids are watching. There could be a larger portion of children who regularly watch TV outside this period (Michele, 2012). As a result, these co-regulatory preparations could not effectively eliminate exposure of children from unhealthy advertising during kids’ famous viewing times.

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