Nowadays, advertisement is pervasive and part of our lives. However, some of them set children as the marketing target, that is unethical in today’s society and administrative supervision is highly recommended.
Children are “soft target” who are easily influenced and like to experiment with new things, so triggering them to consumption is much more efficient than persuading rational adults. For example, massive visits to theme parks and junk foods purchasing are occurred after the kids nagging their parents. This means that companies try to stimulate youngsters to want something not essentially and necessarily needs and pressure on their parents to respond those requires. Hence, parents may annoy with nagging and frustrate with increasingly financial burden of these kinds of new products and services.
Moreover, children are too young to distinguish the truth, so they are vulnerable to negative effects. There is a futuristic danger in technology development that tobacco and alcohol companies use smartphone applications or “apps” implanting advertising in health and fitness categorises or computer games to spread prohibited products information, such as cigarettes and drinks. The fact demonstrates that there is lack of legislation to regulate advertising industries.
Those who feel that advertisement is an intermediary bridging producers and consumers may argue that parents still make the majority of the purchasing decisions. If parents incapable to handle the unreasonable demand of their children, which is not the fault of the advertising agencies. In addition, age 12 children have already developed their behaviour as consumers, can effectively recognise advertising and are able to adopt critical attitudes towards it.
In conclusion, advertisements exert profound impact on modern lives, which increase products awareness and educate customers to select decent goods. It would be better for government to guide the advertising agencies to being more social responsible than prohibit them solely.
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Advertising to children is a sensitive and emotionally-charged issue because children are easily influenced and like to experiment with new things.
"making kids want what they don't need" and puts pressure on parents to respond to those needs.
the average child watches about four hours of television a day and sees more than 20,000 commercials each year, often for high-fat, high-sugar and high-salt snacks and foods.
In turn, parents must take responsibility for their children: monitor what they watch and read, determine how they spend their free time, and educate them to become responsible and informed consumers.
