The Drawbacks of Children's Advertising
Burch, Chairman of Federal Communications Commission of US believes "that in case of advertising directed to children, the standards of what is false and deceptive must be judged in light of the crucial fact that the audience is so unsophisticated, so young and trusting. It is, I submit, intolerable to seek to bilk the innocent with shoddy advertising appeals. As some person amply put it that is akin to statutory rape."(243) What Burch makes clear is that advertising to children is unfair and destructive as it exploits the disability of the child to understand the purpose of advertising.As we shall see in greater detail later, advertising causes parent-child conflict and child unhappiness as a result of an unsatisfied desire. In addition, it challenges desire for alcoholic beverages and more significant, it inspires violence in the child.Let us examine the frequently advertised products, the techniques used to boost sales and the psychological and the ethical appeals being utilized.An analysis of children's television revealed that about twenty per cent of program time of Saturday mornings was devoted to commercials, and during the pre-Christmas season more than thirty advertisements were made each hour.
Econometric studies, a type of cause-and-effect statistical analysis, proved that alcohol advertising affects alcohol use (Saffer, 2). So, they teach children that in order to achieve they should drink that particular alcoholic beverage rather than play, go to school or exercise (Novello, 4). To better understand what the advertisers try to do, one just needs to ask himself or herself whether young children are able to distinguish fantasy and reality?An experiment showed that the majority of children exposed to a toy commercial both wanted to play with that toy than with their friends and to play with a 'not-so-nice child' who owned the toy than with a 'nice one' without that toy (Atkin, 289). An example is the story of little Arthur. So, as a new research shows teenagers that are most familiar with beer ads have the most favorable attitudes about alcohol, and, expect to drink more frequently as adults than their classmates who barely recognize the ads. They also use 'camera magic' which transforms some objects, causes mysterious flight of people and objects, and makes them disappear magically. "(278)In other words, in many ads violence is often promoted. The advertisers insist that ads help children and parents to be informed about the new products in market and have a better choice. Do actually commercials cause teenagers to start drinking? Well, the supporters of ads argue that it does not. The most undesirable outcomes that have been observed are parent-child conflict and child unhappiness. So, first, parents reject most of the child requests for products. Furthermore, approximately half of the heavier viewers often asked to go to strongly advertised restaurants as opposed to one-fourth of light viewers. The correlation of viewing and eating eight strongly advertised cereals was strong, in contrast to the five less advertised brands where it was much less. The film, for a group, contained a hidden presentation of a woolen cleaning product called Zero.
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