Iniquity In Advertising

The Iniquity Of Advertisements On Children The sole purpose of marketing and advertising is to influence consumers attention to, and interest in, purchasing certain products through a variety of media sources. Marketers use a vast amount of techniques to attract audiences to furthermore increase product purchases, with children being the most impactful target. Children, especially below the age of eight unknowingly take in all of the information that comes too them and react in a way of mimicry, what kids see is what they believe. Advertisements have an extremely negative impact on the lives of children in the sense that they change kids eating practices, purchasing habits, and overall social behaviors. Each day while watching T.V. alone

Russell Carney, based off of his own independent research says, “Since children are more vulnerable and show higher trust in advertisements, kids want more of the products that they see on the media” (Carney). This is an important statistic in proving the negativity within this particular issue because it shows kids are unable to decipher messages and their meaning. Donald Shifrin, the president and founder of the ‘Committee on Adolescents and Advertising’ questioned the exact impact of ads, his research found, “Teenagers spend roughly 155 billion dollars a year, Children younger than the age of twelve account for another 22 billion, both groups influence perhaps another 200 billion dollars of their parents spending money on an annual basis” (Shifrin 6). Children account for an overwhelming amount of money spent, so why wouldn't business’ make the kids their target market? Sarah Longwell and her researching committee has discovered that, “An estimated twelve billion dollars a year is spent by advertisers to research the youth market” (Longwell 22). These facts only help support the idea that companies will go to any extent to gain customers, so if companies can figure out how to attract children they have just widened their entire clientele. Families follow a

Young consumers carry such a large target for many reasons such as their adverse reactions to not understanding messages. Minors are young and therefore potential long-term customers for companies which makes them so attractive to promote towards. To a large extent, Advertisements and marketing messages have been proven to be non-beneficial towards the growth and development of children because it impacts everything from the way they eat, what they buy and the decisions they make throughout