Introduction
Consumer behavior refers to the response that is exhibited by consumers with respect to the availability of a commodity in the market. The reaction of a consumer can be studied with respect to the time the consumer takes to purchase the commodity after the sales promotion has been carried out. This paper seeks to discuss aspects of consumer behavior with respect to child targeted advertisements.
The paper will look into the trend in child targeted advertisements, regulations governing child targeted advertisements as well as the need for such regulations with the aim of determining whether regulations should be enacted or entities should regulate themselves regarding child targeted advertisements.
Child targeted advertisements
The intense level of competition among producers and distributers has led to increased measures of market capitalization whereby different strategies are employed. One of these strategies has been the discovery of the new market that is found in children.
Advertisements that are targeted at children have been noted to be a booming business since advertisers are putting enormous resources to reach this age group for markets of their products. It is also reported that producers have made significant level of success in their target as statistics indicate that a large number of children spend a lot of time in advertisement media and receiving the advertisements.
It is, for example, reported that in America, a child is estimated to be watch an average of thirty thousand advertisements per annum. The efforts put forward by producers is also overwhelming considering the reported amount of money that companies are spending on advertisements that are targeted at children.
Similarly, the advertisements are seemingly effective in influencing this group taking into consideration the amount of expenditure that is reported being incurred by children. It is reported that companies spends an average of almost seventeen billion dollars a year on child advertisements while children in response spends about two hundred billion dollars a year (Shah, 2010, p. 1).
Trends in child targeted advertisements
Though a varied specific trend in the level of advertisements targeted to children have been reported in a five year time duration that started in the year 2003, there has been a general increasing trend in the rate at which children are being targeted and exposed to advertisements.
The research, in the time period of 2003, for example reported that targeted advertisements of teenagers have been constantly on the increase with slight decrease on younger children (Powell, 2010, p. 1).
Regulations on child targeted advertisements
There have not been established strong rules and regulations that govern these children targeted advertisements. Though a number of countries have been reported to establish concrete regulations, they are rendered ineffective by the proliferation of globalized media that enable access to advertisements from other countries that target children.
In the United States, children targeted advertisements are regulated by both the government as well as by self regulation under a review act. The government regulatory agencies is, however, seen to be more effective following their powers to take actions against violators of provisions that protects children from unfair advertisements (Andersen and Cheng, 153, p. 156).
Conclusion
Following the difference in enforcement authority of established regulations as compared to self regulations and the possibility of regulating imported advertisements, more regulations should be established to help in protecting children hungry producers and advertisers as compared to the self regulation measures that lacks extensive authority.
References
Andersen, P and Cheng, F. (2009) Case Studies in Food Policy for Developing Countries: Policies for health, nutrition, food consumption, and poverty. New York, NY: Cornell University Press.
Powell, L. (2010) Trend in exposure to television food advertisements among children and adolescents in the United States. Web.
Shah, A. (2010) Children as consumers. Web.