Icy Waterfall

Mr. Mayo/English
November 30, 2007
Children Lives in Advertisers Hands

Advertisers are using unethical methods to sell their products to kids. These ways are corrupting the lives of kids. Advertisers have successfully convinced today’s kids that if they don’t have the latest products, they are inferior to those who do. Turing kids into the materialistic generation. According to Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, advertisers spent 17 billion dollars last year on advertising that targets children directly. They do this because children are a big influence on what their parents buy, like cars and houses.

Companies have a new marketing technique they are using, child psychology. They use the knowledge of psychology to target kids more effectively. For example, they work with psychologists to analyze children’s behavior, fantasies, and sometimes their dreams. They use this information to manipulate younger children with their advertisements. Since younger kids can’t tell whether an advertisement is accurate so they believe what is being advertised is true. Junk food is one of the products most commonly advertised to younger children. This is a concern because young children think that junk food like hamburgers is okay to eat all the time because of the commercials, they see. If they do start eating junk food constantly, it could lead to unhealthy eating habits or obesity later on life in their life. A research was done where they studied a group of kids aged 3-5 who were given two identical foods, like fries. One of the foods was wrapped in McDonalds while the other had no label. Most of the children in the group thought the fries in the McDonalds wrapper tasted better. This shows that kid are convinced by the ads for McDonalds that anything with that label tastes better, even if it is the same as an other brand name.

Advertising companies try to get kids to recognize their labels starting from when they are babies. This is called building brand name loyalty. It is also called “cradle to grave” because they start by getting young babies loyal to their brand until the day they die. They do this by convincing parents that having their baby in front of television can help in their development. Then, on channel for babies they put many commercial for toys and food products. Therefore, by the time they are three they can recognize brands like Fisher Price and character like. In addition, marketing companies give free materials to school with their products on it. When kids see products they know, endorsed school they think it is good. For instance, Ford and Pizza send school resources like poster and workbooks to preschools and daycares with tight budgets. The companies like Pizza Hut say that they are giving certificate for personal pizzas if their teacher read to them 60 minutes for 4 weeks straight. Even though they say it’s all for helping children read, teacher already read to their kids. Also, they read to their kids without having the logos on every page.

Through television, radio, and the Internet, companies advertise their products to many kids and teens of all ages. The Internet is one the popular venues for teens. However, websites like MySpace and Facebook track sites you go on and send emails to people on your friend list so it looks like a personal recommendation from you. Not only is the Internet a major place for advertisers but the television is too. Children will see 30,000 commercials annually on just television alone. Since young children learn by observing and mimicking, they are most likely to copy what they see on television. It could be very unsafe because younger children can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Most shows and commercial that are on television has some kinds of violence or aggressive behavior. This could lead to children growing up and having behavior issues or become rowdy with their peers.

Even though advertising can be hazardous to kids, it also provides many jobs for adults. Advertising is a big money making business. Nevertheless, we could use people’s advertising skills for another use than exploiting kids. We could make other jobs that don’t harm the development of children. If we as a country, stop targeting children in a negative way than the number for underage drinking and smoking, and domestic violence might go down. In conclusion, advertiser’s methods are altering children’s lives, dramatically.

In period 2 we are doing a video conference with Harvard psychologist Susan Linn on advertising that uses psychology. She is the director of a company named Campaign for A Commercial-Free Childhood. We start with Rhiannon who asks what is her company and it is a group of concerned citizens trying to stop the commercial exploitation of children. They try to get people to think about it by getting it in the press and to pressure companies. For example they said how Shrek is poster character for health but in the last movie Shrek 3 they had 16 junk foods associated with the movie. Ms. Linn says that commercial advertising to kids is a bad thing because in research it says that it is a factor in obesity, violence, eating disorders and even doing well in school.In 1989 they spent 100 million, and now companies are using 17 billion dollars to advertise to children. If she was in this position, she wouldn’t in it because she doesn’t think it is ethical to advertise to young children unless you care about them but if you do it for money then. In her opinion her worst type of advertising is viral marketing. Viral marketing is when they get kids to advertise their product. For example FaceBook is going to send ads to people on your friend list to show that you are interested in that product without your consent. But friends have to option to stop to ads. For example in FAce book and Myspace they could become friends with Sprite. Corny. She also thinks marketing to babies is bad. In Myspace people hack into your password and put in ads on your page. There is no law that you can not make a whole ad for a toy. There also use to be a law you can not advertise under 8 years old but Congress took it away. Now there are only restrictions. Advertisers think of cradle to grave advertisements where they try to own the consumer. They advertise to young babies so when they are adults they remember it. They can also become loyal to their brand and if they are, they could be less likely to do comparison shopping which means if a brand they know makes its price higher than they would care because they are already loyal to the brand name. Companies use brand licensing to advertise to young babies. They encourage parents  to have their babies room filled with Disney Princess or Spiderman. So when the baby gets older they start to get interested in the character. Also advertisers want parents to put babies in front of a screen around the time your born. Then babies when they get older get more dependent on screens. If we started as a country to say that advertising to kids is bad then people would lose a lot of jobs. Instead we should train them to do some thing else. Advertising could rule the world because it could effect democracy and critical thinking.

The article “Nurturing Brand Loyalty” is mainly about coropate businesses like pizza hut, ford and care bears using worksheets, posters and other school resources to teach kids how to read. They say they are just trying to teach children by encouraging them with there product. But isn’t that the teachers job? The corporate companies and some teacher and preschools like the idea because many school are in an low income area so any materials that are free are welcome. For example pizza hut offers certificates for personal pizzas to students whose teachers read regularly to them. This is just a trick because teacher already read to their students normally.Some teachers and preschools are not convinced the companies “just want to help”, they think they are trying to get preschoolers to become loyal to their brand because if school endorse it then kids might think the brand is good. I think the corporate companies are just fishing to see which preschools and teachers are catching the bait, that they want to help, so they could reel them in as a victory for their marketing.

Many, many studies are showing that food wrapped in a McDonald’s wrapper taste better. HuH. In the article we read they studied”youngsters” to test two identical foods, but one is wrapped in McDonald and the other weren’t wrapped. They studied 63 low income kid age 3-5. The study showed that 77% said the labeled fries was good, 54% favored the McDonald carrots and 29 kids chose McDonald’s while 22 choose the unmarked. The kids who said they liked McDonald better was the same kids who know what McDonald is and ate it weekly. Does McDonald use it fancy advertisements to get young kids to know and like thier product. Yes.

The article we read today was about advertising using a new technique to get kids to buy their products. Psychology(aka brainwashing). Advertisers use psychology to make their products appeal to kids. For example they use research to analyze children’s behavior , fantasy lives, art work , and some times their dreams. They use this because it gets kids hooked on their products, wanting more and more.
Advertisers build brand name loyalty by moving their manufacturing operations to countries that offer cheap labour so they could spend more of their money creating powerful marketing messages to make the consumers(kids) loyal to their brand name.
Buzz Marketing is using marketing techniques to make the product create a “buzz”. They do this by finding the coolest kids(sponsors) to wear there products. Kids would see the product on the coolest kids and want to buy it too. This is also psychology because they know that when a lot of kids have some thing more and more kids would want it too to fit in with”the crowd”.
You know all these R-rated movies for adult are actually made for children. In the article it say that the FTC(Federal Trade Commission) studied that 80% of R-rated movies are targeted for kids under 17. They advertise mature and teen rated video games in youth magazines. Music with “explicit-content” are on the television, radio and online, which are some of the most popular venues for teens. Next time you see an ad for a ” restricted” movies on your favorite website you that it is the marriage of marketing and psychology at work.  

The article is about how advertising companies are using the website Neopets to influence kids. They use “immersive advertising” to reach children. Immersive advertising is using a virtual marketplace. For example, in Neopets users can make their pet go to the movies and watch movie trailers. I think this is a good way to advertise things without people knowing it. This way they can get there product advertised and sold more because a lot of people use Neopets.

In China they are making cartoon police characters to tell internet users not to go on illegal sites. I think this is censorship. I think they are doing this because in the  article it say that China is the second largest internet user. Because of this more and more people could go to sites that are considered illegal, for example sites that criticize the Chinese government. I think the Chinese government has good intentions but they’re are being very controlling.

North Korea has a lot of propaganda and censorship. The “great leader” Kim ll Sung controls how North Korea thinks , acts, and feels, even though he is died. When the “great leader” was alive he gave the people of North Korea false information to portray himself as larger than life. Since their is no contact with the outside world only know the information the government feeds them with. The government also tells the people that talking to foreigners is against the law and only “chosen ones” can talk to them. There are also many statues of Kim Sung. Every person even foreigners have to bow before the statue and give flowers. Even though many people in North Korea say that the “great leader” has done so many great things, they only say that because all the propaganda has brainwashed them. There country has a famine. When they do performances for foreigner they only chose the children who look the healthiest and happiest so that they could hide what is really going on in the country.  

The article is about the president of Pakistan, Perez Musharraf. Musharraf is ban all the media from making comments on his aministration or on the miltary. Whoever breaks this law they will be fined and jailed. I think the president silenced the media because he didn’t want the media influcening the minds of the people in Pakistan into turning against him. I think he think this because he has been in power for  a long time and doesn’t want to leave. I think he thinks that if the media start reporting that  he is trying to be a dicator then the people of Pakistan might rebel against him. I think that Musharraf shutting down the media is making the people of his country hate him more because he is limiting their freedom of speech and he is causing a lot of violence in his coutry. In the article it says that about more than 100 people have died from the fighting and the attacks.