Advertising: Content & ImpactAdvertisingBillions spent on advertising to children each yearWhy are kids a target market?Influence parental spendingNagging, kid needs to ask about nine times before the parents give inWant to create future consumerLifelongA lot of children have their own moneyExposureAs a result of these efforts, American children witness thousands of ads each yearHow?360 marketingthere are ads in every medium kids use (on video games, school buses, smart phones)is this fair?Not reallyDiscrimination & ComprehensionAttention to adsUp to age 5, there is no difference in attention to the ad verse a program, they are attracted to visual contentProgram/commercial discriminationBased on age, they cannot tell the ad from a program at a young ageUnderstanding of purposeDon’t understand what a commercial is until they are about 8 or 9 years oldSkills needed?Conceptual thinking (abstract)Understanding that an ad is only to make money for a company, not necessarily because it is goodRole takingThey don’t have the ability to think about what would happen if you give socker boppers to their older brother/sisterAppearance versus realityToughest lesson, what you see in the ad is not what you getCookie crisps were really awfulEmotional readinessThe marketing is no necessarily made for super young girlsSexualized clothing, make-up, 6th graders wearing thongsRegulation and the FCC/FTC-First Policy 1974Limited air timeDuring the week you can’t have more than 10 min of advertising in an hour of programming and during the weekend they get 12 minutesNo host sellingHost selling is the lead actor of a television show that is currently being watched cannot sell something/ they can’t tell the difference between the program and commercialNo program length commercialsMust inform, educate or entertain a child not marketBumpersThey must have an indication that this is a break and not the original show they were watching-The Federal Trade Commission 1980governing body that oversees advertising, considered a ban on child advertising completely but they took power away from the federal trade commission, so now they have very little power-Reagan Eramarket place approach to government, let the market place be and the parents will set the rules, not usReagan took away first policy-Children’s TV Act of 19902 main partseducational programming requirement – pretty uselesshad to have educational content and much teach something in order to get a new license for itdidn’t define what education content washad to be at a time children would watch ithad to be where parents could find itadvertising limits10.5 min/hour weekend12 min/hour weekdayBumpersFade to black, or auditory cue indicating that the commercials are startingNo program length commercialsNo shows made to sell toysNo host sellingWhen character from the television show that is currently being viewed starts to sell a productButWhat about video on demand services?Are children more protected (less commercials) or less (no oversight)?Probably notEffectsAge compressionWhat is a tweenOriginally 9-12 but now it starts as young as 6sexualizationPsychological issuesChildren are becoming more materialistic, which is linked back to the amount of ads that target young children//ADD, not only are TV shows fast-paced, so are the TV commercialsHealthObesityUsually unhealthy foods are advertisedWhat do ads targeted to children look like?Kunkel and GantzSampleLooked at ads during children’s programming5 hours per day for 2 months7 US cities7 channels per cityfindingsnetworks: 10 min.hourcable: 6.5/hourPBS: 0Types of products (findings cont)Toys 34%Cereal 22%Sugar snacks 18%Fast food 6%Health food 3%Other 17% (music, clothes)Type of appealFun 27%Taste/smell 19%Performance of product 18%Safety <1%Quality <1%ResultsIf children were to consume a diet consisting of the foods most commonly advertised in this study, they would ingest122 grams of fat per day1.5 cups of sugar per dayso what can we do?BrandsGiven all of this information, what are children’s favorite brands?Used to be: McDonalds – before 1980Now: appleWhat could this mean for the future of advertising?Advertising will go toward Tech, they will be putting more advertising resources on an iPad or unusual partnerships between Apple & another companyRegulation & Literacymain effort is self-regulation. Parents need tolimit exposureparental discussionbut usually people do these talks at the wrong time like in a grocery store but they should talk to the kid about it when they see the advertisementhow does this compare to other countries?US has the fewest rule of any industrialized nation on the rules about media targeted childrenUK says you cannot advertise the most unhealthy food in front of the TVGreece, cannot advertise any toys under the age of 8Sweden, cannot advertise to children under age of 12Member States’ initiatives include, for example, Greek legislation prohibiting advertising for toys on television between 07:00 and 22:00 and, in Sweden, a prohibition on television advertising addressed to children under the age of 12. In the UK in 2007, the statutory television regulator Ofcom introduced rules prohibiting the advertising during children’s programming of products high in fat, salt or sugar.Educational ProgrammingDefinitionPlanned to meet a specific curriculum goalProduced specifically to teach a child somethingLegislation-Children’s Television Act of 1990 – if you want to renew your license you must include education programsprovisions for advertising & educational programminghad to demonstrate that you were providing some educational programming in order to have license renewed-FCC Guidelines 19963 hours of educational programming per week, regularly scheduled, time when kids would actually watch it7 am – 10 pmregularly schedulededucational is still vague-Despite guidelines, educational programs still hard to find. Why?EconomicsTakes research/fundingHard to produce & research educational program bc of so much time & moneyGood v. evil (easy to sell)Educational/cultural referencesSesame Workshop-consisted of teachers in school systems and they noticed there was a huge gap-objectiveshelp disadvantaged kids, to level the educational playing fieldeducational and FUN-Model for SuccessInvolvement of ExpertsConsulted before every episodeTargeted ViewerPreschoolers 3-5don’t have to worry about maintain attention or teaching kids older than thatRealistic Curriculumuse songs