Anonymous

Do you have any idea how much advertisers are paying for a share of your mind?  Between 1983 and 2007 the amount of money spent on child advertising escalated 170%; it went from 100 million to 17 billion within 24 years.  With that money we could buy 34 million computers for schools, 212 middle schools and saying that the average cost of a house is 300,000 dollars, 56,666 houses.  Sadly nowadays there are more laws restricting advertising to adults then there are restrictions limiting advertising to children.  Advertisers are using new types of deceptive advertising to manipulate children and teenagers and there are no laws to stop them.           Cradle to grave, a commonly used catchphrase by many U.S advertisers, today means to grow consumers from birth.  James McNeal a marketing consultant said in an article “there’s only one way to increase customers” he also said “either you switch them or you grow them from birth”.  Parents are a big part of this problem.  Parents will purchase Disney or other brand name products for their infant and as these children grow up they will learn to cherish and love these brand name products.  By the time they are toddlers they will want and only want this certain type of product.  Also when a parent buy a McDonalds meal, there kids can easily associate the good tasty hamburger in inside with the golden arches (McDonalds signature symbol). In a study preschoolers showed vegetables in golden arches tasted better than vegetables that weren’t.  Also its confusing to kids when a healthier exercising ad with Shrek appears on their television when Shrek’s image was sold too 71 other companies including McDonalds. The very popular Neopets.com lets children manage their own mythical creatures. In order to feed you creature you must play games and many games have advertising in them.  This is called advergaming, the use of video games to advertise a product.  Certain games are all advergames like for instance Toucan Sam is a character looking for map pieces in froot loops and you have to help him.  Other very popular sites like Myspace and Face book use viral and data mining advertising.  Data mining goes along with viral advertising, data mining is what advertisers us to gain information from the sites that you visit to make a custom tailor fit advertisement.  Viral advertising is where Myspace user will visit a friend’s site and a personal recommendation appears in their mailbox for a certain product. At this day and age in the world kids and teenagers use the Internet more and more and advertisers are using that to their advantage.               “The U.S. regulates advertising less than a lot of countries,” said Dr. Susan Linn co founder of the campaign for a commercial-free childhood.  The Campaign for a commercial-free childhood is a group of teachers and students working to stop the exploitation of kids.  “Congress took away the power of the FCC to regulate programs” she said.  According to Dr. Susan Linn the U.S. has laws limiting the amount of commercials but not the content.  In most European countries it is illegal to show children eating junk food on tv.  This law would change the face of advertising in the U.S. Imagine a commercial break without a candy or McDonalds commercial.            So what if advertisers advertise directly at children?  But after a while damage will be done.  Brand Licensing Viral advertising Data mining and Cradle to grave are only a few of the new forms of deceptive advertising targeting the young population of America.  Whether or not the child advertising bothers parents, Child advertisers are still going for a piece of children’s minds.Click here to download                                                                                                                     do-you-have-any-idea-how-much-advertisers-are-paying-for-a-share-of-your-mind.do