Introduction
Advertising has been known to lead to an increase in the sale of products due to informational and persuasive roles of advertisements. For this reason, many marketers have engaged in advertisement tactics aimed at increasing sales. To market products designed for children, marketers have engaged in widespread child-targeted advertising.
Research indicates that advertising target at children is effective in creating positive attitudes and behavior towards the advertised products. However, there have been concerns that increased advertising to children may have negative impacts on children since they are highly impressionable. This has led some people to question the morality of advertising to children.
This paper will argue that in spite of the negative impacts that are inherent in advertising to children, it is possible for marketers to engage in ethical advertising to children. This ethical advertising will be beneficial to both the advertisers and the children and mitigate any negative impacts of advertising to children.
Advertising to Children: is it ethical?
The children market is huge and it has therefore become very important to marketers. The AEF approximates that children represent $500 billion in direct spending and $500 billion in indirect spending. Millions of dollars are therefore being spent by marketers on advertising to reach this huge market segment. Advertising to children is an important issue for children are still developing and they can easily be influenced by advertisements. Clay (2000) observes that advertisements have a major impact on child development and the huge volume of advertisements should be cause for alarm.
Impact of Advertising
Values
Advertising promotes materialistic values among the very susceptible young ones. This strong value for wealth encouraged by advertisements is associated with lower levels of personal satisfaction and high levels of distress in the individual.
Clay (2000) confirms that because of advertising, children have gained the perception that they are inferior if they cannot have the numerous new products that are being advertised to them on a daily basis. The materialism promoted by advertisement extends into the adulthood years of the child therefore contributing the consumerism culture in the United States.
Exposure to a commercial increases the child’s desire for the particular product that has been advertised. The major purpose of advertisements is to attempt to change the attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors of children through targeted advertising.
Through advertisement, children’s recall or recognition of the advertised brand is increased. This might make the child like the particular brand leading to behavioral effects such as the child purchasing the product advertised or requesting for it from his/her parents.
Advertising influences the eating habits of children by influencing their choice in foods. Most advertisements promote unhealthy eating due to the excessive advertisement of sugary goods and fast foods. Studies indicate that exposure to television food advertising among 5 and 6-year-old children directly influenced breakfast food and snack preferences (Bakir & Vitell, 2009).
Psychological principles
To enhance their understanding of children and their reactions to advertisements, marketers targeting children have enlisted the help of psychologists. Clay (2000) notes that by using psychological knowledge from the psychologists, marketers are increasing their effectiveness in coming up with advertisements that influence children.
Advertisers rely on the development frameworks established by developmental psychologists to structure their advertisements for maximum impact. Children undergo three distinctive development phases, which are early childhood (younger than 5years), middle childhood (6 to 9years) and late childhood (10 to 12years).
The cognitive and information processing skills of children within each phase is different. By considering these psychological principles, marketers are able to effectively influence purchase behavior of children. Advertisers are able to change their persuasive tactics to suit the development stage of the children being targeted by an advertisement.
Ethical advertising
While Advertising to children under the age of 12 is allowed in the US, it is not allowed in most other developed nations due to the vulnerability of this audience group (Snyder, 2011). It is therefore very important for the advertisement industry to have high ethical standards to avoid damaging the children. Marketers must balance between their need for increasing product sales through advertisement and protecting the interests of children.
Truthful and non-deceptive
Ethical advertising requires the marketer to make truthful claims about their products and avoid making misleading assertions. Vaux (2006) asserts that when advertising ethically, the marketer must be honest and tell the truth about the product in question. There should be no exaggerations about the product’s capability and its weaknesses should be exposed.
The advertiser should also avoid giving subliminal messages to the children who are very impressionable. Advertisements for children must be constructed in such a way that children are able to understand the persuasive nature of the advertisement.
By engaging in such ethical considerations, the target audience will not be unjustifiably influenced to purchase the product. The AEF (2005) contends that by engaging in effective an honest advertising, marketers can gain the trust of both children and their parents thereby making advertising to children less controversial.
Snyder (2011) asserts that children must be able to distinguish advertising from news content and entertainment content. Due to their inexperience and immaturity, children often lack the ability to evaluate the credibility of advertising.
Advertisements must therefore not be presented in a manner that “blurs the distinction between advertising and editorial content” (Snyder, 2011, p. 478). If this occurs, children will be misled and unduly influenced to want to purchase the product being advertised.
Strength
Advertisements serve the important role of informing consumers on the products being offered in the market. Through advertising, children are able to obtain information on the products available to them. Ethical advertising will assist in building brand loyalty and trust with consumers. It will also help prevent the negative effects that unethical advertising might have on the advertiser.
Engaging in unethical advertising might harm the advertiser in a number of ways. To begin with, customers might boycott the product due to the deception that is contained in an unethical advert. Unethical advertising by some marketers has been responsible for the rising concern by parents towards the impact of advertising directed at children (Bakir & Vitell, 2009).
The government has also established standards, which advertisers must meet. Mack (2006) explains that in cases of extreme willful deception, legal action might be taken against advertisers and severe penalties imposed if the advertiser is found guilty.
Professional consultant
Professional consultancy is a key aspect in ethical advertising to children. This consultation helps advertisers to come up with the most effective advertisements for their products. When advertising to children, marketers consult with child psychologists to obtain useful knowledge and skills for coming up with successful advertisements.
When marketers act ethically, they will not use this professional knowledge to commercially exploit children. Instead, psychologists can be used in the decision-making process to ensure that the advertisements being created do not exploit the vulnerabilities of children (Clay, 2000).
Professional consultants help marketers to comply with government regulation. The Federal Trade Commission is the body that regulates advertising in the US and it imposes standards and requirements on the advertising industry. This regulatory body requires advertisers to provide some facts in order to validate the claims being made in the advertisement.
The FTC also prohibits advertisers from creating advertisements that are meant to mislead the consumer. By following the legal and regulatory standards, marketers will be acting in an ethical manner. Marketers might not be able to properly analyze their advertisements for government compliance on their own.
Experts are able to identify inappropriate advertisements and inform the advertisers on the same. Mack (2006) suggests that when a marketer is unsure of the ethicalness of their advertisement, they can hire a professional consultant to assess the advertisement. While this will increase the cost of advertising, it will avoid unethical practices such as false advertising.
Conclusion
This paper has argued that it is possible to engage in ethical advertising to children. It began by acknowledging that children constitute a major market for commercial organizations and this has led to an increase in the number of advertisements to children.
The paper then highlighted that advertisements have a major impact on children who are still in their early developmental stages. If unethical advertising occurs, marketers might exploit the children for profit. However, ethical advertising ensures that the negative impacts of advertising are avoided while the positive aspects such as information dissemination and increased product visibility are achieved.
References
Advertising Educational Foundation. (2005). Advertising to Children. Web.
Bakir, A., & Vitell, S.J. (2010). The Ethics of Food Advertising Targeted Toward Children: Parental Viewpoint. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(1), 299–311.
Clay, R.A. (2000). Feature Advertising to children: Is it ethical? Some psychologists cry foul as peers help advertisers target young consumers. APA, 31(8), 52-60.
Mack, S. (2006). What Is the Difference Between Unethical and Ethical Advertising? NY: Demand Media.
Snyder, W. (2011). Making the Case for Enhanced Advertising Ethics How a New Way of Thinking about Advertising Ethics May Build Consumer Trust. Journal of Advertising Research, 51 (3), 477-483.
Vaux, R. (2006). What Is the Difference Between Unethical & Ethical Advertising? NY: Demand Media.