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The average number of hours of TV 11-14 year olds watch around the world Is over 65. (Global-issues, 2014). These statistics are enough to highlight how crucial advertising oriented to children has been. The sectors that are affected by children preferences range from their clothes, music preferences, personal care products, food likings. Besides being a gallants source of business, children also have remarkable influence over their parents’ behavior in terms of family decision making process.
They are not only spending money on their own, but also creating a influential market Worthington billions of dollars (McNealy, J. . : 1987). Anne Marten’s research shows that children play an important role not only in initiating the choice/decision” or “decision is made entirely by the child”). This is more remarkable when dealing with products that are relevant to them: cereal (around 60% purchasing decisions on product category/brand are initiated by children, and over 40% actively influenced by them), Juice, soft drinks, mobile phones. Moreover, this influence has been proven to be increasing.
McNealy (1998) reported that children’s indirect purchase through influencing parents decisions soared from USED 5 billion in sass to USED 188 billion in 1997 (McNealy, J. U. (1998)). Obviously, with the empowered influence and involvement in family decision making process, children are developing a huge potential secondary market. Aiming at children is an effective way to develop sustainable brand loyalty from the beginning. This can be achieved by various methods of approaching like advertising on TV and on the internet. Today’s technology enables continuous interaction between marketers and children customers.
By that way, marketers convey the messages to children and get feedback room them at the same time, thus developing effective marketing strategy, by taking into account children’s desires, interest, their changing needs. Once they start to flounder in this regard, their audience will leave. Moreover, advertising plays an important role in societal development also. Advertising council has collaborated with a lot of other volunteer advertising agencies in creating effective public campaign like “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” and “Friends don’t let Friends Drive Drunk” (Keith Reinhardt, 2005).
The advertisement about seat belts has increased the usage of child safety seats and safety belts, resulting in a accident decline percentage of 18% among children (0-12 years) and overall front seat fatalities reduced by 46%. Besides public campaigns, commercial advertising with a good messages can teach a children good behavior and habit. For example, ‘drinking milk, ‘brushing teeth’,’ reading books’ inculcates good habits and stimulates imagination and expands knowledge in children. As we know that the children are the next generation, it is important to prepare and develop their knowledge, skills and technological applications.
However, it is extremely important to monitor advertising operation. And this is the shared responsibility of the agreement bodies and companies. By strict governmental regulations and standards regarding the advertisement’s content, credibility of the proving data and proper broadcasting schedule, children can be only influenced by reliable advertisements in a proper way. For example, cigarettes and alcohols advertising should only be broadcasted in adults’ channels during the time that avoids children’s eyes.
With respect to corporate responsibility, companies developing long-term strategy should take into count company responsibility towards the society in general and children in particular. Companies have to be responsible for the credibility of the content, the health aspect the the products, for thoughtful communication with the parents. Example, Coca cola company has stopped advertising in primary schools and has announced that it will be eliminating sugared drinks from vending machines in grad schools too (Foundation, 2014).
Since some of younger children are likely to have a limited ability to evaluate information from advertising, parents still play an important role as a guide. It is their responsibility to teach their children on how advertisement industry works, how to assess an advertisement and what to do with decisions about what their children eat and drink”(Coca-Colombian. Com, 2014). In conclusion, with the above aspects, advertising to children should be supported, as long as there is a balance between effective marketing and responsible marketing. Today children are becoming high demanding consumers and the competitive environment is rather tough.
Besides creating an interesting and catchy feature highlight, a wide variety of techniques should be applied. Those includes: repetition of the message, animation, celebrity endorsement, branded characters and so on. With the development of the internet, there are more options for the marketers to approach children more effectively. Among those, viral marketing is a good option, where marketers can get people to talk about the product on a website, pay children who can influence others to use the product and make other children notice and try their useful products.
Viral marketing is proven to be effective to teenagers, especially when it goes with discounts and other programs (Rubin, 2004). One new quench which proves to be effective is “stealth-marketing”. By that, marketers attempt to conceal the intent of an advertisement by blurring the crosslink between content and advertisement (Gardner E. , 2000). “The theory behind the new technique is that advertising is most affective when consumers do not recognize it as advertising” (Ginsberg, 2002). However, this techniques can only be done via online channels.
The marketing activities should seriously value and demand the parent’s role. All parents want the best for their children and they are a great influence on children’s behavior. Therefore, all the marketing activities should make a clear and trustworthy communication towards the parents, besides aiming at children. This can be done by networking with other facilities, egg. Associations, Popular professionals, Childcare communities, and maintaining a professional, compelling websites where they can provide information about their products.
Thus as mentioned, when aspects of Company responsibility, Government regulations, parental guidance, benefits of children focus for future development of products and services in the market has been covered, Advertising to children is seen as only a depiction of reality of arresting situation and of no harm to them under the consideration of the points mentioned. The development of critical sensate Swedish children thus cheated out of their chance to develop critical sense in relation to advertising?
And will they be less able, when they grow up, to deal with the disappointment of not possessing everything they see advertised? It would seem to be fairer and more sensible to start educating children about the commercial intentions of companies at an age when they can rationalist and are no longer predominantly motivated by emotions. Expecting children to learn about advertisements before that age would seem to be rather futile as well as creating difficulties for the child and the family. EFFECT control systematic monitoring and for ineffective sanctions – there are no fines or obligations for corrective advertisement.
Advertisements today are not so much about the products but rather about the character of the consumers and how they should feel when they use or possess the advertised product. Messages to children are all about the happiness, social status or success which accompany the possession or consumption of a certain toy or type of food. Allowing business interests and economic criteria to determine what children are exposed to when watching ads will undoubtedly have some effect on their future outlook on society.
The freedom of expression Researchers have shown in detail how television helps children to form the attitudes and skills of consumerism, starting from the child ‘s ability to recognize and understand advertising and link it to their requests and purchases. Search on ‘consumer solicitation’ suggests that children gradually develop a range of skills and knowledge to do with the commercial world that help prepare them for adult life. They are neither the helpless victims imagined by some campaigners nor the autonomous ‘media savanna consumers celebrated by some marketing people.
Their engagement with the commercial world is part of their everyday social experience and is very much mediated by other social relationships with family and friends. For example, it may be possible to show that people who watch a lot of television also have more ‘materialistic’ attitudes. But this does not in itself prove that television causes materialistic attitudes: it might equally be the case that people who are predisposed to be materialistic tend to seek out television as a form of entertainment, or indeed that there are other factors that explain both types of behavior. Such, the commercial world could be seen to offer children many opportunities in terms of entertainment, creativity, communication, learning and cultural experience that they would not otherwise have. There is good evidence from recent I-J studies that children feel pressured to wear particular brands of clothing, and that this can be crucial to their sense of belonging and status within the peer group. However, there is also some evidence that this phenomenon is slightly excelling and that children claim to value individuality.
Again, it is often difficult to separate out the influence of the commercial world from other factors.