Consuming Kids : The Commercialization Of Childhood

No matter where children are or what they are doing they’ll always find some sort of advertisements. It can be when their casually watching television, reading a magazine or just playing games on their computer. Advertisements are different forms of communication whose purpose is to make their product known to the public. Marketers aren’t partial to certain people; they target anyone and every age group, but recently there has been an upsurge of advertisements aimed towards children. In Eric Schlosser’s article, Kid Kustomers, he demonstrates how child advertising has boomed by the tactics marketers use to get children to want and demand certain companies’ products.

In today’s media obsessed society, youth is greatly influenced by advertising. For example, Marketing to kids gets more savvy with technologies is how they ,“Online games like Webkinz show ads on the site draw youth to buy the product or just to look at it for ‘money’”. Because this tactic works, the ads are an excellent at make youth to talk about this and be annoyed. In Facts about Marketing to Children, it says, “Children pack 8.5 hours of media a day’, is what the Facts about Marketing to Children says.” Because children are on the media so much it is easy for marketers to advertise and get children to buy the product. “ Anne Lappe says that when her daughter grows up, and goes to a movie, the character might have a soda or fast food.”

One of the most successful marketers is quoted in the article “Get kids to nag their parents and nag them well”(260). In the initial few sections, he discussed the present time effects of the advertising on youngsters. Through this he contend that, previously, there weren't numerous child based marketing organizations that concentrated exclusively with respect to children and have their own kids' divisions, while now, they have huge amounts of organizations that makes a whole advertising division for the

“Congress should ban advertising that preys upon children, it should stop subsidizing dead-end jobs, it should pass tougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power (Schlosser). People must wonder how is it that a fast food company has so much customers. Advertising is the answer. The power advertisers have to be able to influence so many people 's decisions and affect people’s lives especially the lives of young children is incredible. Advertisers know just who to target and they research how too. In Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation, Schlosser explains to the readers how advertisers use techniques to draw in customers. A technique used is the “cradle-to-grave” which focuses on children to make them lifelong consumers. Like many researcher, Schlosser, has found that advertising to children when they are younger makes them be loyal to the company, and a child 's “brand loyalty” may begin as early as the age of two (43). Fast food advertising reaches out and harms families everywhere. This is why it is crucial that the people to make changes in their lives and change the way fast food is affected us.

Advertisements are everywhere. They are a major part of modern day society. Whether it be a television commercial, an internet banner, or a billboard, advertisements influence people of all ages, but they affect a certain age group much more than others. Children ranging from toddlers to teenagers are exposed to thousands upon thousands of advertisements each year. Some of these advertisements are damaging to children, while others are a positive influence. Advertisements can either be used as a tool or a weapon. Food advertisements and manipulation strategies are both positive and negative, and how companies use them decides whether or not marketing to children is ethical.

Whose fault is it? Every day children are sucked into marketing ads and techniques created by multi-million dollar companies. Is it right for companies to target children who cannot think for themselves? Or should parents and guardians be at fault for their child’s engagement with certain foods or product. Multi-million dollar companies have the power to change the world with their advertising of certain products, however, responsible parents also have the power to change their child’s life.

In a 65-year span, an average American spends around nine years watching television including 975 days of watching just commercials that is two million ads altogether. Parent are wondering what most of those commercials are regarding too? They are mostly businesses that are targeting kids to eat fast food or influence their parents to buy a product like a toy. Parents think that they can just turn off the T.V.? Yes, folks are correct they can shut down the T.V., but there are way more advertisements than just commercials so many that it is hard for even ad savvy parents to keep it away from their children. Marketers will try anything to get the kid to buy their products, or they will put a logo on everything that they can. How do they target

When I was two years old my mother enrolled me in gymnastics. Gymnastics was a huge part of my life for the next four years. After moving up to be with the fourteen and fifteen year olds my mother realized that something was not right, because I was having body issues at the age of six. In the text “How Do Our Children Get So Caught Up In Consumerism” by Brian Swimme he addresses the issue of how deeply affected the children of America are due to consumerism. Unlike Swimme I do not believe that all of children’s psyche problems come from ads or television. I think they also come from people who our children highly trust. Although Swimme is right

Eric Schlosser’s essay, “Kid Kustomers,” concludes and makes several strong points about the marketing on children. He starts his essay with a brief comparison that “twenty-five years ago, only a handful of American companies directed their marketing at children,” whereas today, “children are being targeted by phone companies, oil companies, and automobile companies…” He emphasizes and stresses the importance of having “Kid Kustomers,” because one important marketing strategy is to aim to “increase not just current, but also future, consumption.” Schlosser learns that ad agencies target children because they make up a majority of their sales. Throughout the essay, Schlosser not only gives marketing tips but also discusses the 7 different types

Over half of eight to 12 year olds will spend their own money. This essay is about how advertisers target youth so they feel pressured to buy certain products. The three roles that advertisers play in the lives of youth are that advertisers overwhelm youth with ads, design ads to target youth so they nag their parents, and to target youth so they pressure others.

One of the reasons that Americans suffer from affluenza more than consumers in other countries is because of the advertising in America. Businesses, marketers, and advertisers have discovered that colonizing the imagination of the child is the most effective way of securing a life-long conspicuous consumer. Between 1980 and 1997, the amount spent on children's advertising in America zoomed from $100 million to $1.5 billion a year. American children watch up to 200 television commercials per day. The average 12-year-old in America spends 48 hours a week watching television

Marketing to children is not a new phenomenon; however, there have been many ethical debates on its rightness; is advertising to children a gentle persuasion of the innocent or a sinister threat to our society? There’s too much as stake if we remain silent and simply assume that marketing companies have our children’s best interests at heart; the truth is they don’t. This paper will explore to implications of marketing to children and the overall effects it has on our society. I will argue that advertising to children is a social problem. In the first part of my paper I will discuss why advertising to children is ethically wrong, I will then discuss what has changed; this will be followed by a discussion as to why it is a social problem and finally, I will conclude my paper by discussing what should be done to change it. Please note this paper is written in the first person as I have children and I have a vested interest in this topic.

This article is about the strong protection children in America. Too many of our youngest are threatened by a steady blast of industrial-strength advertising on children's television. Some ads, like those for toys and games, mostly threaten the family budget. But the commercials hawking sugary treats or empty calories can be more pernicious. Many health professionals now fear that junk-food advertising to toddlers and pre-teenagers is contributing to soaring rates of obesity and diabetes among the young. According to The Institute of Medicine, in a report last December sponsored by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that ''current food and beverage marketing practices put children's long-term health at risk.'' Another idea from government showed that " The Federal Trade Commission decided last year that the food industry should police itself on marketing low-nutrient foods to increasingly fat children". But these progress are not strong enough; therefore, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and two Massachusetts parents have announced plans to sue Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon, and the Kellogg Company. These advocates of healthy food have accused both companies of ''unfair and deceptive'' junk-food marketing to children under the age of 8. They have argued that high-powered ads aimed at children as young as 2 years old is ''creepy and predatory.''

The government should exercise more control and limits on advertising that is aimed at children. Children are the leaders of the future and the children watch on average two or more hours of television a day. These are children’s most formative years. When children form ideas that prove to be substance of how they will think as adults.

With an exuberant title of SIZZZZLE, this article in the September 2006 edition in the issue 393 of the Internationalist Magazine, enunciates on the idea of advertising companies targeting children and young people to produce a higher income. Quoting through a variety of renowned child psychologists and various marketing educators, Jonathan Williams illustrates advertising as exploiting an individual’s insecurities, creating false needs and offering counterfeit solutions; hence fostering dissatisfaction that leads to consumption. Williams states that children are particularly vulnerable to this type of manipulation. Manipulating adolescents into a consumer lifestyle at such a young age has devastating consequences for the environment