Is Advertising To Kids Ethical?

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Is Advertising to Children Ethical?

When did you last sit down on a Saturday morning and watch cartoons? Did you pay any attention to the commercials that punctuated the hour’s entertainment? If not, you should! According to a 1999 international survey conducted by Consumers International, children have become an increasingly important market for advertisers and therefore, not surprisingly, much television advertising is aimed at children. Because children are less able than adults to fully understand the intent of advertising or its persuasive techniques, they are less able to comprehend the validity of the information that they absorb. I believe that this is unethical, and that the practice should be either banned or carefully regulated.
What’s wrong with marketing to kids, you may ask? The choices that children make about what products they spend their money on, and the influence they have on their parents’ spending, can be detrimental to their health. You may be surprised by how much money that represents. According to a 1998 article in American Demographics, children’s spending in 2001 is estimated to each $35 billion (Zoll, 2000)!

Children who are enticed through advertising to believe that Pokemon Cereal is something they must have, will work hard to persuade their parents to buy it. The advertisers’ claim that this sugar-laden, almost non-nutrient product is “part of a nutritious breakfast” is misleading. Children who are allowed to consume sugary foods usually do so at the expense of eating other, more nutritious foods (Zoll, 2001). As such, their health suffers. This applies to advertising for chips, soda pop, and numerous other “junk foods”. Children simply can’t differentiate between healthy foods and those that have little nutritional value, but they are pushed by the media to see those foods as “the best choice”. This is truly unethical.

The tobacco industry has also targeted ...