Ethical issues surrounding children advertising - Essay Example

? Ethical issues surrounding children advertising [Supervisor’s Ethical issues surrounding children advertising Ethical choices are not always in black and white; there are the choices in gray area that need a bit of cognitive thinking in understanding them. Telling the whole truth in the advertisements is not right but to partially cover up just the part of the truth. Many people react differently to certain advertisement and this is the reason why the advertisers should be more careful while targeting these children because they learn things and behaviors around them as they grow. Practicing of ethics in marketing terms is to be fair and morally right. The organization tends to do those activities that could earn them maximum returns but doing marketing ethics would earn them a competitive advantage for a longer period of time (Kotler and Armstrong 1999). A business does well when they are focused in satisfying the needs of the customers then their competitors as per the requirement of their target market. As the world are getting more savvy about their rights in getting a desired product, the company has to adhere ethical values rather than just providing the products. Customers develop a positive attitude towards the organization when it behaves ethically. A company that tends to follow otherwise leads to the negative behavior from the customers and results in dissatisfied customers and a negative publicity and eventually losing a customer. So, forming an ethical advertisement that would target the children in a sociably ethical manner would earn the company’s revenues (Hebert 1998). In this paper, the effects of advertisement on children’ attitude and behavior and social upbringing is discussed by addressing different issues and literature that currently exists on this subject. Children have a mentality of learning things very quickly and they have a nag of remembering those things that they often see in their childhood. Everything that they pick up these days has an essence of advertising in it. Cartoons are no longer fun and excitement nowadays, but the commercials for a certain toys are more attraction to them. But the most significant thing that we want to ask ourselves is what it has done to our children and what effect it may cause in the future. The advertisements that were made previously were subtler and every child that was asked about the future aim they would prefer being a doctor, or an engineer or a pilot. But due to the effects of these commercials on children they prefer to make money. They have been converted into a materialistic non-thinker (Paula 1998). Advertising agencies have pretty much made these children to force their parents to buy them the latest stuff that has been in the advertisements and magazines. The kids are literally begging parents for the newest toys and children are the first in line to get them. Many of them have the feeling that if they would not get these toys then their friends would not like them. Now advertising agencies have help from the psychologists that tells them how to target these children and are barraging the kids will all sorts of commercial which would attract them. These advertisements have become so severe that these psychologists have taken this matter to the government to put an end to this situation. The task force has studied the situation and the effects that it has on the children. But some psychologists would start protesting about it because they think they are not doing anything wrong. They have a viewpoint that they are making these children better consumers so it would be helping them to make good decisions (Clay 2000). The children are being exposed to the product that is offered in the market but there are no studies that have justified the effect of advertisements on these kids and their behaviors to force their parents in making the purchase decision. This has caused a depression for certain parents and children and has caused low self-esteem of not buying the product that has been demanded because many people are not wealthy enough to purchase expensive products like Xbox, Play Station, or a Game Boy. The recent study shows that when these children get to the age of 36 months, they remember and identify 500 brand logos. This has been replaced by the first words that a kid would actually say as Daddy or Mamma (Beder 1998). Advertisers have a different way of perceiving things; they do not believe that this is exploitation of kids in the worst way but in fact they think that children can affect these commercials in many ways. First these children have their own spending that they get from their parents so they can buy whatever they want, secondly children are considered to be great influencers and they get exactly what they request. Lastly children are more open to these advertisements that any adult. This test shows that children have spent billions of dollars themselves and several billion others when they influence their parents. According to a website ‘Global issues’, the results are startling which says that in the United States average child watches about 25,000 to 40,000 commercials each year. And advertisers are spending about 15 billion dollars each year on advertising these children (Lizabeth 2001). In the olden days people would never saw children in the advertisement but with audience demanding for a better response from the advertising agencies, they tend to give the commercials a pleasant family life to which people can associate with themselves. Children are unaware of the difference between advertising and marketing gimmick and are not used to make real promises. It is unethical in a way that advertisers are using the children mainly as a tool just to attract more customers. If children do not have any reason for selling the product then the advertising agencies should keep them out of the marketing and the advertising world (Davidson 2002). The frequent targeting of children via those commercials proves that the idea seems to be working. The advertisers care about their money and if this idea would not have been working they might has stopped acting on it. The advertisers target these children on every ground that they think it is related to these children. From websites to the television, everything has been bombarded by these advertising agencies on to these children. If one closely monitors the evidence it does not really show that the issue is very complicated but it has no solution. Ethics may not come in to play because advertisers have to make money and this is an ideal way to get their investments worth (Haefner 1991). The trend is shifting in a way that these advertisers are not only targeting these children for their specific needs such as toys, candy or cereals. But they are marketing kids for much higher priced products such as computers, clothes and cars. This has created a big business for these advertisers and has led the parents to buy those stuffs for their kids (Haefner 1991). They have opted a way to target the children directly to raise the issue of fairness. Parents are unable to control their kids what they watch and hear. The modern world has made them busy and most of the time children are the only ones at home while there parents are busy earning. Internet is surely the primarily activity of these children and the advertisers spend most of their time catching these kids through internet. Children spend time on internet more than their parents and this makes the job tough for the parents to monitor their children movements (Patrick 1998). Children are mostly affected by these advertisements because they cannot differ between what’s right and wrong, if they see anything flashy and glowing they tend to force their parents to buy it. It has a massive impact on child development so advertisements are considered to be a multi- million project. Children consider themselves inferior if they don’t have the new array of products which they desire, which was referred to as narcissistic wounding. Psychologists claim that the advertisers are busy making money rather than building up a better society in which they could help children’s development. They are working on a methodology to convince people that they can only be happy if they had new things to buy. But the effect of advertisements on children is still unknown and not a single study shows the impact of advertisements on children is authentic. The advertising agencies are manipulating children to believe in the message while all the evidence shows that believing in the message is bad for people and it is often misguiding, that’s unethical about target the children (Kotler and Armstrong 1999). Marketing should be done in a way that it does not affect the moral principles of a human being and marketing ethics is all about moral principles. Marketing ethics involves different areas such as advertisements, promotion, product and pricing. Many marketers would believe that children are the best friend of the marketers and this argument has been supported by the media channel. In a 2007, a report by the media showed that around two billion of the money was spent in targeting the children and it was estimated that children could cause a great effect on the purchase of the commodity. The products that were specifically tailored to children in the year 2006 were mounted up to fifty two billion dollars. But apart from the earnings from the advertising agencies, ethical issues count the most (Russell and Lane 1999). Even the use of the children in advertisements is just like using a cheap labor in an industry. They are using the children without any proper terms of agreement from the advertising agencies and in fact it comes under the violation of the child law. In Hollywood for instance when these children are allowed to act in a certain movie, parameters are kept so as not to indulge these kids away from the studies. They sign a well-defined contractual agreement with their parents. The government should also ensure that these children should proceed with their education and development once they get free from their advertising campaign (Modern ghana newspaper 2010). The reason for the advertisers of being so successful is that they indulge the psychologists while making the marketing strategy for the underage group. They would take their assistance in how they could influence these children and get more returns to their investments. Since psychologists can interpret the minds of the children they help the advertisers in their campaign. The three main terms that can give the guidelines on marketing ethics is stakeholders, values and processes. The value focuses on the marketing idea that has been created to target a particular age group. Advertisers have the power to maneuver the audience in either a positive attribute or a negative attribute and implementation is the key to carry out the method. If advertising to child violates the privacy and the autonomy of a child then the advertisement has a problem, but by using psychologists in the midst to create an advertisement that can have maximum effect on child then this is certainly a violation of children’s right and autonomy. They try to learn the behavior and the trends of a child and then they use their tactics to exploit those behaviors, which is quite unethical (Sirgy and Lee 1998). If the process of the research and promotion is done in an ethical manner than it is considered to be legitimate but this is something that marketers have ignored these past years and their research that they carry out is very unethical which makes the whole process unethical. Their knowledge is based on the psychological experts who take advantage of these children. The marketers who are deliberately focusing on children to make their profits high are doing unethical practices because children are very primitive and they tend to learn things as they grow up (Davidson 2002). The stage is called proximal development in which children starts to pick things up from the environment and the world that they perceive it to be, they actually apply it in the various aspects of their lives. They develop a level of trust to what they observe around them and they take it as reality. They are vulnerable and are incapable of the arguments that involve the reality of this world and they can easily be exploited. The advertisements that are specifically targeted to children are the ones that have a cartoon characters in it. This makes the children think that they are only one that are capable of buying this product but it is their parents who have to foot the bill. But unethical advertisements are those that create the desire among the children while they are occupied with their television shows and the ones that do not involve getting parent’s consent. These advertisements are often aired in the afternoon when children are often alone and without the parent’s consent, and then these advertisements become unethical (Kuman 1999). The modern media is now been transforming itself and took a new form of convincing its customers through infants and children. Advertisers are consistently been using the children in their commercials to make their sales up high. In a number of rarely occasions do these advertisements make a real use to these children, most of the time the real purpose is to win the emotions of the customers (Verhellen 1996). The advertisement in which the inclusion of a child in a commercial is compulsory makes an advertisement more meaningful and gives more sense to a commercial with respect to the content it covers but when the inclusion of children is irrespective of the meaningfulness of a commercial then it is unnecessary to include the appearances of a child (Shah 2010). Children do not have the mind power to realize that the advertisement contains manipulations that are created by these advertisers and they certainly do not realize the cost of the product that comes in play while making the purchase decision. It is unethical for the advertising agencies to keep the parents out of their children marketing strategies. Ethical marketing practices can be termed to those activities which involves the parents while catering the children’s needs. The unethical practices can be overcome in a way that the advertisers should advertise the children related products in the parental magazines and target parents instead of the children (Haefner 1991). The other way to achieve is by simply stating in the advertisement that the parental consent is highly advisable. Targeting the children alone can have greater effects in many ways. It was found by recent findings that fifty eight percent of the items that were purchased by the children through their own spending were sweets and the next bought item was toys. This is staggering because most of the advertisements of toys and sweets are directly targeting the children (Patrick 1998). Targeting the children alone highlights very important aspects of marketing and points out the fundamental ethical issues. The advertisers that claim that their advertisements are ethical must adhere to the balance of power principle. The advertisements should be made in a way that it neither favors the marketers or they tipped towards the consumers (Sirgy and Lee 1998). Situation favors the marketer when they tend to cater particular target markets. This is said to be unfair in marketing because it is basically exploitative in nature. First it has to identify if the advertisement is particularly tailored for the children alone. The type of product and manner of advertisement in which the message has been conveyed differentiate the concepts. There are also certain elements that can easily relate if the advertisement is unethical. This can be either distinguished through music, images, voices and color. These elements constitute the major part in directing the attention of the children. Some advertisements have characters to captivate the children and drawing them with more attention. And some advertisements are published in a magazine that is read by the children alone (Hebert 1998). These advertisements can be termed unethical if they are viewed or read by the children exclusively and alone. For example, if there is no parental consent when the children are viewing those advertisements then it is considered to be unethical. Sometimes the content of the advertisement also matters. The advertisements that make their children feels less about themselves than the product itself can also be termed as unethical practice. The products that are harmful for the children are also considered unethical. For example, McDonalds was sued for its toys that had small parts that posed threats to the children if they had eaten it. If advertisement promotes these kinds of products that it is also unethical (Kotler and Armstrong 1999). However many of the people seems to be happy while watching a kid in a commercial and it can create a strong impact on the consumer’s mind in purchasing decision but how can a child pursue in recommending a consumer product if that same product is not directly meant for them. The world of advertisement is using children as bait and is misusing to hawk all kinds of products and has been a growing concern in developed and developing countries. Endorsing children in an advertisement can also have a great impact on the children viewers, who then urge their parents to buy them the product. The government of France has already imposed a ban on the endorsing of children in advertisements (Verhellen 1996). There are two major groups that have an argument about the children advertisement. The first group is the abolitionists that believe that advertising to children is wrong in any way and it should be stopped. But viewing the fast paced world, it is impossible to conclude that this might actually happen. The other group is of liberalists who believe that advertisements to the children should be left alone and they are good as they are (Beder 1998). They have a belief that advertisements shape up the society and advertisements does not affect any moral values of a human being. But this assumption can be rejected because children all around the world are spend majority of their time sitting in front of a television and watching frequent advertisements which is for sure that they will pick some of the habits from the television (Shah 2010). It is required for the advertising agencies to be responsible for the act that is directly related to the shaping of the society. Children should be targeted for the retail products but in a professional and ethical manner. There are some priorities in targeting children that can affect the whole marketing strategy. First, the marketers should view children as a docile customer who is willing to be taught and led by the advertisers but it also raises a lot of controversies (Kuman 1999). The other part is to view children as a non-consumer which is preferred to be highly unethical by looking at their age and advertising everything to make their increase in their revenues because they are aware that the children possesses a significant influencing power. The most sustainable form of marketing is to view children as the informed consumers. The marketers should convey the message in such a way that it informs the marketing idea within the commercial. Informing the children in an early age would give a positive impression that they understand the commercial world. It actually means that the children have the power to decide for themselves for whatever they want and what’s good for them (Lizabeth 2001). The main mechanism through which the advertisements are called unethical is that the children are too small to understand the real meaning hidden behind the commercials. If the advertisers just inform the children about these marketing ideas then there would be no ethical issues related to it and marketers would feel free advertising them. But in some countries children understands the effect of advertising mainly at the age of 12 and they are capable of viewing those advertisements from a different angle. (Davidson 2002). The human rights claim that the advertisers should not target the age group that falls below from this age. Many websites has tried to focus on the children by making friendship with them which helps them to develop a brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is considered to be the most critical factor in marketing these children because when the people get loyal they don’t try to switch to a different brand and they are most likely to stick with the particular brand. So the advertisers have a strategy to catch these people young by bombarding them with number of ads before they start forming the opinions. While some websites offer games so that their logo’s and picture is available to the children and they can memorize it whenever they see a product related to it (Clay 2000). Advertisements have an impact on the child’s intellect because they tend to grasp thing more quickly than any adult and it works as an integral part of a child’s development. Children are important marketing target because their knowledge about the product and the selling strategies are unknown to them and they tend to be drawn by strong images and visuals (Verhellen 1996). Children are easily coerced in to the act because they are emotionally weak and small as compared to the adults and their lack of experience can easily be influenced by the advertisements. Children enjoy advertisements to a maximum extent and while they have a soft heart, they force their parents in buying the desired product, which has been termed as a nag factor. Advertisements can distort the children minds and their view of the world. They have a problem in distinguishing the reality and the message in the advertisements (Russell and Lane 1999). The advertising agencies, which cater the children market, are emphasizing on three broader aspects. First being that the money that is spent by the children alone, then the children influences their parents in buying the desired product and thirdly because children are the future for any business. If children get addicted to a certain product then they would continue to buy it from the same company as long as they are brand loyal. The factor of the brand loyalty can remain with a person till the adulthood, so the company recognizes the importance in catering children (Patrick 1998). To conclude the argument, parents need to watch their children’s steps in what they do and how they behave, because children are in the phase of cognitive development and they tend to perceive things and act according to it without distinguishing between the moral rights (Clay 2000). The advertisers need to be more care in designing those strategies while targeting children because it has sparked many controversies in many countries; however experts believe that the advertisements that are directly targeting towards the children without the parents consent are thereby considered to be unethical so the advertisers should avoid such issues and the idea should be more focused towards targeting children along with the parents consent (Kotler and Armstrong 1999). List of References Beder, S., 1998. Marketing to Children. University of Wollongong Journal. Clay, R., 2000. Advertising to children: Is it ethical? [Online] Available at: [Accessed 1 March 2012]. Davidson, D., 2002. The Moral Dimension of Marketing. South-Western Educational Journal. Haefner, M., 1991. Ethical Problems of Advertising to Children. Journal of mass media ethics, pp.83-92. Hebert, J., 1998. Ethical Ideology and the Ethical Judgments of Marketing Professionals. Journal of business Ethics, p.715. Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G., 1999. Principles of Marketing, 8th ed. New York: Prentice Hall. Kuman, C., 1999. A Paradigm for Development and Promulgation of a Global Code of Marketing Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, pp.125-37. Lizabeth, E., 2001. Marketing With A Conscience: Sales and Ethics. Journal for the US Dept. of State. Modern Ghana Newspaper, 2010. Advertising industry violates children's rights; CR. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 27 Feruary 2012]. Patrick, E., 1998. Ethics in Advertising: Review, Analysis, and Suggestions. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, pp.316-19. Paula, F., 1998. Moral Reflections in Marketing. Journal of Macromarketing, p.104. Russell, J. and Lane, W., 1999. Kleppner's Advertising Procedure, 14th ed. New York: Prentice Hall. Shah, A., 2010. Children as consumers. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 1 March 2012]. Sirgy, M. and Lee, H., 1998. Does Television Viewership Play a Role in the Perception of Quality of Life? Journal of Advertising Spring, pp.125-32. Verhellen, E., 1996. Monitoring children's right. Massachusetts: Martinus Nijhoff publishers. Read More