The unintended effects of advertising upon children

Advertising aimed at adults—i.e., concerned with products and services appropriate to adults—is very often seen by children. This paper aims to illustrate when that being advertised is inappropriate to the child audience, message meaning will be gleaned from the peripheral coding mechanisms in the advertising. It is therefore concerned with what children take such advertising to mean. This is a theoretical paper, not concerned with how advertising affects purchase and consumer behaviour in children, but rather with unintended effects that are not manifest in consumption