Commercials for Kids

Children are a colossal sized audience to commercial marketing. Each year, kids will watch between 25,000 and 40,000 commercials (“Children Not Seeing More”). These infomercials are carefully designed to attract the kid’s attention and persuade them to persuade their parents to buy the product.  However, there are dangers to marketing to such a young audience. The fact that kids will take everything as truth and unbiased makes it more likely they will believe and want what they see on tv. For example, if kids see all how happy meals make other kids happy, they will increase consumption of unhealthier food and create an increase in childhood obesity. Another example is, as kids are exposed to beer commercials at a very young age they develop the mentality that drinking is good. Although there are very obvious cons to advertising to kids, there are very big reasons for this advertisement. The strongest argument for advertising to kids is the amount of income it generates. Teens in the US spend about 160 billion dollars a year (“Children As Consumers”). Children up to 11 spend about 18 billion dollars a year (“Children As Consumers”).  Tweens (ages between 8-12) heavily influence 30 billion dollars of spending by their parents (“Children As Consumers”). This heavy influence has caused 80% of all global brands to influence a “Tween” strategy (“Children As Consumers”).  Kids up to teenagers influence their parents to spend between 130 to 670 billion dollars a year (“Children As Consumers”).  Losing this market of kids would cause an incredible downturn in the economy. The way to prevent kids from becoming too heavily influenced by TV commercials is proper education. It should be taught why fast food should be eaten in moderation rather than majority of the meals. It should also be taught why alcohol is not safe drink for kids. Although advertising to kids may appear wrong due to how easily influenced kids are, kids in today’s society make up a very large portion of the market that we cannot afford to lose. Proper education is the best tool for why kids should buy fast food in moderation or why a product is bad for them. 


McDonalds Kids Commercial










WORKS CITED

1990, By. "Children as Consumers — Global Issues." Global Issues : Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All — Global Issues. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/237/children-as-consumers#ParentalversusCorporateInfluence>.

"Children Not Seeing More Food Ads on Television." Federal Trade Commission. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. <http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/06/childrenadsstudy.shtm>.