Advertising and Children

Abstract

This article reviews the debate regarding the issue of growing obesity in society in terms of issues and possible policy options. The issue is most focused on children though having obvious ramifications for adults in many economies around the world. Policy solutions such as advertising bans or taxes that have been proposed in several countries seem to be based on insufficient evidence—i.e., there is no empirical evidence to substantiate the claimed causal effect between marketing communication practices directed at children and nutrition. These solutions, if enacted in policy, could be both inequitable and ineffective. While the study is couched and framed from a New Zealand context, nonetheless it serves to illuminate issues and policies of wider relevance.     

Children and the Changing World of Advertising

Concerns about children's ability to fully comprehend and evaluate advertising messages has stimulated substantial research and heated debate among scholars, business leaders, consumer advocates, and public policy makers for more than three decades. During that time, some very fundamental questions about the fairness of marketing to children have been raised, yet many remain unresolved today. With the emergence of increasingly sophisticated advertising media, promotional offers and creative appeals in recent years, new issues have also developed. This paper provides a basis for further examination of some the key questions in this area, and suggests how children's advertising research can be employed to illuminate them.     

Tobacco Advertising Bans and the Dark Face of Government Paternalism

This article uses the landmark Chabot judgement to examine the question of the legitimacy of tobacco advertising bans. While Justice Chabot's decision has been subsequently overturned on appeal on a point of law, his findings about the failure of tobacco advertising bans to reduce consumption were sustained. The author argues that such advertising bans are antithetical to the very nature of a democratic society in that, first, they are instances of state paternalism that attempt to supress individual autonomy and diversity through legislating the truth; and second, they are at odds with the legitimate process of democratic public policy inasmuch as they found that public policy to be based on shoddy, biased and unreliable ‘evidence’.     

Disclosure of Vlog Advertising Targeted to Children

Influencers can disclose vlog advertising by implementing a platform-generated disclosure or by generating their own disclosure. This study aims to investigate whether and how these two types of disclosures differentially affect children's responses toward the sponsored content and the influencer. To do so, a two (platform-generated [PG] disclosure: no PG disclosure versus PG disclosure) by three (influencer-generated [IG] disclosure: no IG disclosure versus no commercial interference disclosure versus commercial interference disclosure) between-subjects experimental study was conducted among 190 children (aged ten to twelve). The results show that both types of disclosures increased children's recognition of vlog advertising; however, children's advertising literacy (i.e. their understanding of influencer marketing and skepticism toward the ad) was less activated when the influencer specifically indicated that there was no commercial interference of the brand. In addition, besides being more beneficial for influencers (by not negatively affecting children's evaluations of the influencer), an IG disclosure also showed to be more favorable for brands, as it increased brand effects among children, whereas a PG disclosure decreased these brand effects.     

The Development and Testing of a Child-inspired Advertising Disclosure to Alert Children to Digital and Embedded Advertising

Via three studies, this article aims to develop and test an advertising disclosure which is understandable for children (ages six to 12 years old) and which can alert them to different types of advertising in multiple media formats. First, cocreation workshops with 24 children (ages eight to 11 years old) were held to determine a selection of disclosure designs based on insights from the target group. Second, two eye-tracking studies among 32 children (ages six to 12 years old) were conducted to test which of these disclosure designs attracted the most attention when the disclosures were integrated into a media context. These studies led to the selection of the final advertising disclosure: a black rectangular graphic with the word Reclame! (i.e., Dutch for “Advertising!”) in yellow letters. Finally, a two-by-two, between-subjects experimental study (disclosure design: existing versus child-inspired advertising disclosure; advertising format: brand placement versus online banner advertising) with 157 children (ages 10 and 11 years old) was performed to test the effectiveness of the child-inspired disclosure by comparing it with existing ones. This study not only showed that children recognized, understood, and liked the child-inspired disclosure better than the existing ones, but they were also better able to recognize advertising after exposure to this child-inspired advertising disclosure.     

Attitudes of Indonesian Mothers Toward Food Advertising Directed to Children

Advertising directed toward children is a controversial issue with growing concerns from parents around the world, including emerging markets such as Indonesia. The reasons for its negative effects include that such advertising could lead to materialism, parent–child conflict, and feelings of unhappiness. In particular, advertising by food companies is a target for criticism due to concerns about unhealthy food and childhood obesity. This article reports on the findings of a number of focus groups of Indonesian mothers to obtain an indication of the mothers’ ethical judgment toward such advertising. The results identify reasons why the mothers found particular advertisements to be unethical and ways advertisements can improve their message. From the responses, some important issues are raised that would be of interest to international advertisers.     

Tobacco Consumption and Advertising Restrictions: A Critique of Laugesen and Meads (1991)

The report of the New Zealand Toxic Substances Board (1989) analysed data from most OECD countries over many years, and concluded that a total ban on advertising would reduce tobacco consumption by 7 per cent. The rather simple method of analysis used has been subjected to some criticism. The scientific editor of the report has recently published a paper in a learned journal in which he subjects the data collected for the report to a more formal statistical procedure, with essentially the same conclusion.

This article is an assessment of the recent paper. It demonstrates that the data used are so flawed that no form of analysis could yield valid conclusions. It also argues that the regression model used is based on an invalid assumption, resulting in a mis-specified model which proves only that advertising restrictions tend to be more severe in countries with lower 27-year average tobacco consumptions.     

Advertising Facts and Advertising Illusions

The concept of low involvement has attracted considerable interest, particularly over the last ten years, but its implications f or advertising (strategy, execution and research) are still not clear. This paper reviews the low-involvement literature and attempts to define what is meant by the concept, predict when low involvement is likely to occur and identify its key determinants. The paper then reviews and assesses what the literature has to say about the specific implications for advertising strategy in high- and low-involvement situations and concludes that the potential and power of advertising in low-involvement situations have been misunderstood and underestimated.     

广告压岁钱

小时侯喜欢过年，原因有很多，最实惠的应该就算是可以穿一身新衣服和得到寄托着亲戚长辈以及伟大领袖殷切希望的压岁钱了。虽然这笔小财最终会被父母以替你保管为由给搜刮去，可就凭从手上过那一遍的兴奋，就足够自己乐着把年给玩完了。     

The ‘Smee Report’ as a Contribution to The Tobacco Advertising Debate

The UK Department of Health's consultative document on tobacco advertising (informally known as the ‘Smee Report’) occupies a curious position with respect to debates on public policy about advertising. While its conclusions have not been accepted by the UK government, they continue to be used, uncritically, elsewhere in the world as part of the ‘justification’ for bans on tobacco advertising. This article examines the basis of the Smee Report's key conclusions concerning the UK, Canada, Norway, and Finland, and argues that its claims with respect to the effectiveness of advertising bans are untrue.     

The Ethics of Food Advertising Targeted Toward Children: Parental Viewpoint

The children’s market has become significantly more important to marketers in recent years. They have been spending increasing amounts on advertising, particularly of food and beverages, to reach this segment. At the same time, there is a critical debate among parents, government agencies, and industry experts as to the ethics of food advertising practices aimed toward children. The␣present study examines parents’ ethical views of food advertising targeting children. Findings indicate that parents’ beliefs concerning at least some dimensions of moral intensity are significantly related to their ethical judgments and behavioral intentions of food advertising targeting children as well as the perceived moral intensity of the situation.     

Television Advertising to Children: What Parents are Saying about Government Control

Four hundred parents were interviewed in the Southwestern United States to study parental response to the idea of child marketing and specifically television advertising to children. Findings indicate that the children of those parents interviewed are exposed, on the average, to more than twenty hours of television each week and that in-store product recognition on the part of the children is quite high. General response of the parents indicate a strong doubt in the honesty of advertising to children and a call for greater federal legislation to correct the situation. Also, a strong degree of cynicism was observed among parents interviewed about the institution of television advertising to children and its apparent misleading aspects. Parents were quick to criticize the use of premiums and prizes as a tool of selling to children.     

Ethics in Food Advertising to Children in India—A Parental Perspective

Marketers are seen to bombard children with advertisements for unhealthy foods using sophisticated promotion techniques that have serious negative effects on health and overall well-being of children. So parents try to mediate children’s exposure to media content and call for governmental regulations in an attempt to shield them. The extent to which they mediate further determines whether they contemplate food advertisements as being ethical or unethical. Therefore, the present study tries to uncover the antecedents to ethical versus unethical perceptions of Indian parents about food advertisements directed at children. No study, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, has been conducted so far in India in this regard. Using binary logistic regression with mothers, it is found that the mothers who view food advertisements as unethical report their children to watch fewer hours of TV during weekdays and hold negative attitudes toward advertising to children. These mothers, however, do not feel that the government needs to impose restrictions on food advertisements aired on TV since they themselves indulge in mediation of TV advertising as a general parenting responsibility. The implications of the article are finally discussed.     

The Effects of Advertising,Social Influences,and Self-Efficacy on Adolescent Tobacco Use and Alcohol Consumption

Exploring the simultaneous effects of key variables on the unhealthy consumption behavior of adolescents, two studies focused on the relative effects of advertising, parental and peer influence, and self-efficacy on adolescent tobacco use and alcohol consumption. The results suggest that (1) advertising effects are largely neutralized by parental and peer influence; (2) peer and parental influence strongly predict adolescent tobacco use and alcohol consumption; and (3) self-efficacy is a weak predictor of both adolescent risk behaviors.     

广告需求的变化与广告服务的转型

中国广告业应该如何发展？怎样面对中国自己的问题？中国是后发展的国家，在融入全球化过程当中，有很多问题、很多竞争是在同一个时间出现的。虽然中国广告业不是很成熟，但是最复杂的环境、最复杂的竞争在中国广告业还没有长大的时候已经出现了。在这种背景下会出现共识性迷失。我经常举芙蓉姐姐的例子，     

An Evaluation of Government and Industry Proposed Restrictions on Television Advertising of Breakfast Cereals to Children

In the United States, both industry and the federal government have worked to establish voluntary guidelines for how firms market food to children and to establish a threshold for the nutritional quality of foods marketed to children. The authors evaluate three US guidelines that deal with television advertising of breakfast cereals, which is both heavily advertised and a common meal item for children. They find that the majority of cereals advertised primarily to children from 2006 to 2008 do not meet any of the current and proposed self-regulatory nutrition guidelines, and that this is generally due to excessive sugar content. Further, children and adolescents are exposed to more advertising for products that do not meet the nutritional guidelines. We evaluate the extent to which each of the guidelines impacts advertising of cereals that are most viewed by children and purchased by households with children. The results provide insight for policy makers concerned with limiting the extent to which children see television advertising and ultimately consume unhealthy breakfast cereals.     

Advertising Strategies and Information Content in American and Swedish Advertising

Technological developments make it easier and easier for marketers to standardize their marketing programmes worldwide. There are, however, also strong forces against such a development in advertising, and a standardized advertising approach across countries could hardly be recommended at this point. This article explores the differences between American and Swedish advertising in terms of advertising strategies used, as well as of how informative they are. The result shows that there are fairly large differences between American and Swedish advertising.     

Advertising Decisions and the Long Run Effects of Advertising

The long-run or carry-over effects of advertising have been well documented. These have important implications for decision making in advertising. This article discusses these implications and reports the extent to which directors of advertising of large manufacturing firms are aware of these long-run effects. The study indicates that these individuals do not recognize this phenomenon in making advertising decisions.     

Government and Advertising

Abstract

The existence of any company that must bridge the gap between production and sales ultimately rests in the hands of the consumer. The quality and quantity of the advertising surrounding a product can gain a stay of execution; but ultimately the public alone, through ignorance of a product's existence, indifference, or dislike, decides that a product is going to die.

American industry for the past five years has been under continuous attack. That attack has come in many forms. Some of this outcry against advertising is simply an extension of the on-going attack on American industry. The attackers thrive on visible targets, and in this case, national advertising. Stripped of all the excess verbiage, what is really being attacked is not advertising itself but the business function of selling its products.

We don't need a bureaucratic screen to keep buyer and seller apart.