The affect of advertising on youth culture - Essay Example

Introduction It is safe to say children learn as much, if not more, outside the room as they do inside it. How to dress, how to be "cool," howto relate to others -- all of these social skills are drilled into them early on as part of the lifelong socialization process. An ongoing body of research also shows that, as early as age three, children learn how to shop, select brands and spend their own or their parents' money (Donohue et al, 1980, p. 51). Whole industries develop around products aimed at youth, and it is not just the toy industry. Cell phones and Internet communities like MySpace.com are hot commodities in adolescent social circles. Children dress in branded cartoon underwear, pajamas, T-shirts, jeans and sneakers endorsed by celebrities. They eat brand name cereals, sugary, salty and fatty snacks, drink branded soft drinks and juices. They carry licensed TV character book bags stuffed with TV and film character notebooks, pens and pencils. Come Christmas time, children, most of them age 8 or younger, ask Santa for an average of 7.2 items, half of them by brand name (Otnes, Kim & Kim, 186). Children are big business, and American industries spend an estimated $15 billion each year on advertisements aimed directly at them (Schor, 21). American children 12 and younger controlled the direct or indirect spending of almost $300 billion a year in 2000, often through "pester power" (Gunter, 2004, p. 2). Teenagers may control another $500 billion (Schor, 20-25). Both these groups, then, become a prime target for marketers. But children and adolescents are more than just customers; they are a large portion of the American consumer culture. They do not just spend, or get parents to spend, money on new cell phones, they drive the industry to produce newer technologies like text messaging that are in turn sold back to them. Even as they grow old enough and cynical enough to consider advertisements as manipulating them, teenagers, especially girls, can develop a negative self image from being bombarded by thin, rich and beautiful people on TV. Kids whose parents cannot afford the latest $75 jeans or PSP unit endure the taunts of their classmates whose parents can. Parent and educator concerns about this escalating cycle have developed an entire counter-industry of media watchdogs, critics and authors selling books on the dangerous influence of consumerism on children -- by marketing these products to adults. And while society debates the ethics of selling legitimate products to children, ongoing concerns surrounding underage smoking and drinking linger. Joe Camel might be dead, but what about alcohol advertisements showing (barely) legal drinkers doing things teenagers like to do as well, like dancing and interacting with friends and the opposite sex This paper will examine the problem of pushing consumerism on to children and adolescents, and how it affects them and others they deal with, especially family and peers. The focus will be on the United States, but information from researchers in other countries will be reviewed for the sometimes enlightening differences seen across cultures. Television is the medium explored in the greatest depth, although the Internet is a growing influence on children and a source of conflict in families (Tufte, 71). Efforts to control or restrict advertising to children will be examined as well. Definitions Culture can be defined as "the complex system of meaning and behavior that defines the way of life for a given group or society. Culture includes ways of thinking as well as patterns of behavior" (Anderson & Taylor, 2004, p. 58). Consumer culture, therefore, encompasses the culture of consumers, including their thinking, behavioral and buying patterns. Raymond Benton, Jr. defines consumerism as "the acceptance of consumption as the way to self-development, self-realization, and self-fulfillment," in a society or group that focuses on its consumption, not on its production (in Goodwin, 3). The terms "consumerism" and "commercialism" are often used interchangeably to mean an inordinate focus on the purchasing of goods over other values. Some social critics have noted that American culture and consumer culture are virtually one and the same. Many complain that television shows and advertisements overly influence children's emotional and social development, and form a negative and too-often ignored force in the socialization of children from an early age. Socialization is "the process whereby an individual learns to adjust to a group (or society) and behave in a manner approved by the group (or society)" (Encyclopedia Britannica). Getting to the Problem Perhaps the most important mode of transmission for the consumer culture is through advertising, especially television advertising aimed at children. Most of this advertising is shown during children's programming like Saturday morning cartoons and cable stations targeting children (Cartoon Network, Disney, ABC Family). Communications professor Dale Kunkel estimates a child sees about 40,000 television commercials a year (Dittman, p. 37). Advertisements do not end at the front door: Children are also bombarded with commercials in educational television in the classroom, with exclusive contracts for brand name products in the lunch room and hallways, and even corporate sponsored curriculum units, some espousing controversial, highly political views. Long the target of feminists concerned about how young girls view their bodies, the Barbie doll has kept up with the marketing times as well: Mattel Inc. and MasterCard teamed up to offer the "Cool Shoppin' Barbie," complete with mini MasterCard, a shopping boutique setting and a credit card processing machine that, not surprising, "approves" every purchase (George, 60). The official Barbie.com website collects information about visitors' shopping habits that can be used as marketing research (Stockwell, 11). Nor is all advertising obvious. Other forms of advertising include product endorsements, placement in TV shows, films and games, stadium advertisements shown during sporting events (one way cigarette manufacturers circumvent other advertising bans), city buses shrink-wrapped with ads, kids' clubs, and more recent innovations like viral marketing and "secret agent" marketing that seek to turn individual children and adolescents into walking endorsements to sell products to their peers. Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor examines this bombardment of consumerism in her 2004 book Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. "Children have become conduits from the consumer marketplace into the household, the link between advertisers and the family purse" (11). She notes later (p. 25) that by age 10, most children can distinguish more than 300 brands. Schor's research also found a statistically significant link between consumerism in children and depression, anxiety and an erosion in parent-child relationships. This book has become a centerpiece in the campaign to downscale marketing efforts to children. Other researchers have focused on the connection between television commercials pushing unhealthy food products and the rise in childhood obesity -- not to mention that children watching television are sitting down, rather than being active, yet another risk factor in obesity. History of American Consumerism Consumerism has deep roots in the Protestant work ethic. As far back as the 18th Century, early Americans were concerned with working hard in order to gather goods. This may have been part of the survival strategy in a hard, unfamiliar new world. The early European colonizers were all too happy to enforce this ideal upon the Native Americans, whom they saw as lacking in virtue because they were not concerned with accumulating material goods (Spring, 2002, p. 7). Consumerism and the advertising that drives it got its kickstart as a result of the Industrial Revolution. More goods could be produced more cheaply, more workers had the funds to buy more goods, and so more could be sold to them. Newspaper advertisements before this were overwhelmingly devoted to "land, slaves or transportation," but by the late 1800s, the tide had turned toward consumer goods ("Kidsumers," PBS/WPSX, 2002). Most Americans have seen reproductions of 19th Century Coca-Cola advertisements, usually featuring pink-cheeked youths with demure smiles and one of many memorable advertising slogans. A newly enriched American worker, on the odd moments off of work, could shop at one of the new department stores for dozens of items his father only dreamed of purchasing. Modern Christmas gift-giving and the accompanying shopping frenzy, can trace its roots back to post Civil War marketing promotions by Macy's and other department stores; Santa got fat and jolly and took to sleigh riding in the 1860s; Christmas trees and greeting cards came into prominence thanks to Woolworth's in the 1880s. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was written years later by a Montgomery Ward's advertising employee (Ackerman, in Goodwin, 116). The rise of large corporations made it possible to sell uniform items on a wider scale, and not just at Christmas time. Industrialization also brought about sharp divisions between the genders in work roles, especially for married couples. The man worked outside the home, the woman inside. Domestic products, especially cooking ingredients and cleaning products, began to dominate the advertising scene in the early 1900s. Women were soon seen as a desirable group to market to (Spring, 2002, p. 28) and became the "gateway" for marketing to children and husbands (Schor, 2004, p. 16). Ethnic divides began to be seen at this time as well; while African-Americans began developing their own marketing channels for products, Spring notes they and other ethnic groups were usually portrayed in a servile role to whites in mainstream advertisements. Consumption continued unabated until the Depression and World War II, but rebounded again once prosperous times returned. By the 1950s, advertisements once again were aimed at women and household items, firmly entrenching the advertising industry inside the home -- just in time for the single most important marketing tool hit America: the television. Once television sets became widespread, television advertisements and corporate-sponsored shows had become a staple, eventually surpassing spending on radio. Children were not ignored during this time, but they would not receive a seat at the table until later. Still, as far back as the 1930s, Disney sponsored Mickey Mouse clubs to instill brand loyalty in children and sell products based on its films (Gunter, 28). Advertising to children became more prevalent in the 1960s and '70s, with the advent of numerous cartoons and other shows aimed at them. Concerns about advertising to children were first raised in the 1970s, but by 1978, corporate influence prevailed upon Congress to end the Federal Trade Commission's oversight of advertising to children (New American Dream, 2006, p. 22). Two modern marketing strategies seem particularly aimed at children: cross marketing, which involves two or more companies joining together to sell products, such as when a seller like Burger King offers Harry Potter merchandise to induce customers to buy its food products; and host marketing, intimately related to licensing, whereby products are intimately linked to a television show and indeed, the television show is often produced after the product is available on the market. Product-driven programming would explode on the American scene by the 1980s, with the popularity of children's programs like Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and My Little Pony. Modern clubs, including Mickey's latest incarnation, engage in branding and cross-marketing, and unlike their predecessors, require membership and subscription fees. Toys R Us, Nickelodeon television network, Sassy magazine and Disney all have (or had; Sassy magazine is now defunct) "kids clubs" or membership clubs that cost money to join, and encourage members to buy branded or cross-promoted items, according to a report by Consumers Union titled Selling America's Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90's. "Clubs disguise commercial messages. Kids are invited to join something that promises to be 'theirs,' but turns out to be a way of manipulating them to buy things" ("Kids Club" section, para. 21). Most often, all kids get for free are mailed advertisements urging them to buy more club-sponsored items. Texas A&M marketing professor James McNeal notes, that kids still find clubs appealing. "It appears that kids like the idea of 'belonging to,' they like to get mail -- it shows they belong in their household -- and it can bring much entertainment." And of course, it is a profitable venture for the companies involved. "For the marketer, well, it can be the beginning of a lifelong relationship. What a deal! ... It's potentially very powerful and very valuable to marketers." (para 19). Especially valuable, the study goes on to note, are the names, addresses and purchasing patterns gathered as membership lists, but also useful as marketing research fodder. The Effects on Children While there is no doubt, then, that children are a prime target of marketers and have been for a long time, researchers have been probing for nearly 40 years just how much of an effect those advertisements have on them. The results are less than clear, whether the target is the cognitive effect on young children or whether advertising actually causes unwanted behaviors. Danish researcher Birgitte Tufte notes that most research on the effects of consumerism, particularly advertising, on children relies heavily on theories of developmental psychology (72). For many years, and even today, researchers note the cognitive development stages as outlined in the works of Jean Piaget; Tufte prefers the system outlined by American researcher Deborah Roedder John, gleaned from 25 years of research on children's understanding as consumers: 1) the perceptual stage (ages 3-7), during which children can focus on the perceptual aspects of a product without connecting it to price; 2) the analytical stage (ages 7-11), when children understand the functions behind the perceptual aspects and relate that to relative cost of items; and 3) the reflective stage (ages 11-16), where adolescents now hold not only their own opinions, but understand the opinions and buying power of others. "Thus by sixth grade, children have developed a very keen sense of the social meaning and prestige associated with certain types of products and brand names. Further these items not only confer status to their owners, but also begin to symbolize group identity and a sense of belonging to certain groups" (p. 72). Researchers disagree widely, however, on just what this means in terms of the persuasive power of advertising and a child's ability to understand its intent. Gunter goes into depth examining the various conflicting views, which include researchers who say children as young as 3 and 4 understand that TV advertisements are something distinct from TV shows to those who say children cannot fully understand the implications that they are being manipulated by an ad until they are at least 8 years old. Gunter believes, however, that "age is immaterial as there is no magic age at which a child understands advertising because learning is a continuous process which depends upon other factors such as family and peers" (p. 46) and argues that further research, and better defined research framework, is needed to draw any lasting conclusions. Schor, as noted above, looked into the emotional effects of advertising on children. Interviews with parents showed they had considerable worries about the constant nagging and negotiation over products their children want them to buy. Their children, too, seemed to be suffering from this total immersion in consumer culture, in defiance of popular belief "that dysfunctional kids are drawn to consumer culture; in fact, the reverse is true. Involvement in consumer culture causes dysfunction in the forms of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints" such as headaches, stomachaches and persistent boredom (p. 17). Discussion of Ethical Considerations and Advertising Limitations If children cannot distinguish between an advertisement and a television program, is it ethical to throw so many ads at them And is there a causal link between junk food advertising and childhood obesity, or between liquor advertising and underage drinking These issues have serious implications for efforts from parents and advocacy groups seeking to curb advertising to children in a consumerist society that still gives at least lip service to the principles of a free market and freedom of speech. Other countries and governments have had less trouble deciding whether advertising to children is a good thing: Sweden, Quebec and Austria ban television ads aimed at children or during children's programming. Other European nations have banned ads in schools. Some critics of marketing to children express concern not about the current influence of advertising on them, but on their future behavior. Efforts at building brand loyalty for products meant for children are numerous, such as with the kids' clubs. Researchers have also probed whether ads that children see for things they cannot or are not supposed to have, such as alcohol and cigarettes, affect their future behavior as well. In one study, young adolescents (10 to 13) who were most aware of television beer ads were also the most likely to know the various brands and slogans, and to say they wanted to drink beer when they were old enough (Grube & Wallack, 1994, p. 257). One British study showed that young boys who watched the most cigarette-sponsored sporting events were more conversant in various brands and more likely to continue to associate the sporting event with smoking (Hastings & MacFadyen, 2000, in Gunter, 2004, p. 127). None of the studies Gunter reviews shows any causal link between viewing vice advertisements and eventually engaging in those behaviors. It seems hard to believe, however, that these ads are not doing the same things all advertisements do, and that is build awareness and a desire to at least check out, if not purchase, a company's goods. If American society does not condone underage drinking and smoking, then it should not condone back-door marketing efforts. Indeed, it was largely the efforts of citizen activists who convinced lawmakers that the Joe Camel cartoon icon was aimed at getting children to pay attention to Camel brand cigarette ads, not adults. American parents do have the numbers -- and actual control of the purse strings -- to effect changes. What concerns some activist groups, such as New American Dream (http://www.newdream.org) is that marketers are increasingly finding ways around parental influence, even those parents who are not overburdened with stress themselves. "Overextended parents should not be forced to raise children in plastic bubbles while marketers enjoy free reign to accost kids who unwittingly venture into a commercial world by simply attending school or interacting with friends. The fact that parents hold primary responsibility for teaching children positive values does not imply that corporations should be allowed to undermine parents and saturate kids with harmful messages," the organization holds in a brochure aimed at parents, Tips for Parenting in a Commercial Culture (New American Dream, 2006, p. 16). Conclusion Certainly, more research can and should be done on issues raised by the intensification of advertising to children that has pushed them to the head of the class of consumer culture. There can be little doubt that American companies would spend $15 billion a year on something that is not effective. The real question, of course, is whether "consumerizing" our children is harmful. Schor's arguments and research are compelling, for it may show a correlation between advertising and the social messages it propagates. Without a smoking gun, however, it is doubtful that Congress could be persuaded to return controls to the FTC or other agencies. That leaves the power to force changes on parents. Many of the advocacy groups offer tips on "de-commercializing" the home environment, and how to pressure schools to do the same. But they also warn that adults need to model responsible consumerism to their children as well. Even though adults complain that commercials are not worth watching, they may still talk about ones they do like, or fall in with the hype surrounding Super Bowl advertising, for example. Adults certainly buy into the consumer culture themselves, and not always as informed shoppers. What will be interesting to see is whether the backlash against the hypercommercialization of children grows to the critical mass that would be necessary for any grass-roots, consumer driven changes in how companies sell to children. Works Cited Ackerman, Frank. History of Consumer Society: Overview Essay. In Goodwin, Neva R., Frank Ackerman & David Kiron, eds. Consumer Society. Washington DC: Island Press, 1997. Anderson, Margaret & Howard F. Taylor. Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004. Consumers Union (n.d.) Selling America's Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90's. 19 March 2006. Dittman, Melissa. Selling to Children. Monitor. American Psychological Association, 33.10 (2002): 37. 19 March 2006. Donohue, Thomas R., Lucy L. Henke & William A. Donohue, W.A. Do Kids Know What TV Commercials Intend Journal of Advertising Research. 20.5 (1980): 51-57. EBSCOhost database (6560743) 20 March, 2006. 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