Ethics in Advertising to Children - Essay Example

In addition, marketing targeted at children prompts feelings of dissatisfaction and meagerness, promotes detrimental social values, such as avariciousness, and is likely to result in health problems, such as childhood obesity

A cereal advert specifically targeting malnourished children is an unethical form of marketing. The advert is likely to give children the impression that the particular cereal will cater to all their nutritional needs. Children require different groups of food to develop healthily. Implying that a particular cereal will help malnourished children, will likely result in children taking for granted other foods (Watson, 12). Marketers need to realize that children are highly impressionable and watch out for the kind of message that their adverts send out to the children. Furthermore, marketers should realize that children cannot comprehend the message within the advert, and should, therefore, take into consideration the likely negative impacts that may come about as a result of the advert before airing them on the media.