Different organizations use different means of getting more customers and maintaining their loyalty. Most of these marketing strategies have gone out of their ways becoming unethical in nature and having a lot of influence on children, and leaving them vulnerable. Marketers uses advertisement especially on televisions and this has the greatest impact on children, due to the extend the advertisement covers.
In most cases, children refer to advertisements as normal entertainment. Different qualitative researches have found that children do enjoy watching television advertisements due to the pleasure they receive (Katke, 2007). Many parents have become concerned about the marketing advertisements that are directed to children and the effects they might have (Walsh, 1990). The concerns have been mostly on the food advertisements (Grossbart & Crosby, 1984).
These are some of the major concerns that have made the parents to look into how they can control their children in watching televisions.Advertisements placed on the television plays a significant role in diffusing communication. Hence, it has a big influence in the development of a child’s consumer behavior (Peter & Olson, 1994). Advertisement acquaints children with the available products and how they are to be used.
In a case where parents controls the children from watching television, the impact the children will get from watching the adverts will be lowered. Despite the effort by parents to control the frequency at which children watches television adverts to reduce its effect, it has been found out the results can be the opposite of what the parents think (Bijmolt’, Claassen & Brus, 1998) . The concern of the parents about the food advertisements in televisions is that these foods are never healthy foods. In a research done by the New South Wales Department of the Health in 2006, it was found out that of the food advertisements done in televisions, 43% were of high fat or sugar content, while 36% were of core foods (Brand, 2007).
Therefore, children are exposed to more adverts on high fat and sugar contents than the core foods. These adverts usually come during prime times. These are the foods that have been a major cause of obesity to the children, hence the parents concerns.In Australia, due to the role played by the television advertisement in contributing to obesity, many concerned bodies have called for the banning of these advertisements.
Advertisements have not been directly linked to causing obesity, but due to the contribution it makes on the children’s choice of food, it thus plays a big role in children’s obesity. The more a child watches an advert about certain product of food, the more they will need their parents to buy that product. Therefore, the advertisement has a direct impact on the type of food the children will want their parents to buy for them. Children have become a target of many such adverts since they are not able to differentiate between the real information and an advert.
In a research done by Hastings (2003), it was found that there is a lot of literature showing that children’s diet is usually affected in various ways by the adverts carried out in televisions. Despite this, there are those who have argued that there is no sufficient evidence to say that food advertisements contribute to the child’s diet behavior hence obesity. This is because many researchers have shown evidence that there are impacts that are caused by the food adverts, but none of the researchers has been able to wholly quantify the details (http://www.wfanet.
org/pdf/adv_papers/how_advertising_foodchoice.pdf.). In Hastings (2003) findings, there are many ways in which obesity among children can be linked to watching the television adverts.
However, there is no point that advertisements per se have been linked to obesity. However, considering the type of foods that causes obesity are the ones highly being advertised, it can not be easy to rule out the impact advertisement causes to the children. It has been widely argued that advertisement causes increased cases of obesity. However, according to Holt et al, (2007), research has shown that the number of children watching television had indeed dropped by 9% in 2004 compared to the number that was watching the adverts in 1977.
furthermore, the advertisements of the food still carries the food contents that were being advertised in 1977, yet comparing the rate of obesity at that time was lower than what is being witnessed after the drop in the number adverts watched (Holt et al, 2007). It is true to argue that advertisement is not the only means that can influence on the children’s consumption behavior. However, many different researches have consistently shown how powerful it is in influencing the children.There is a growing consensus between different stake holders that food advertisement targeted towards children works.
This has led to increased concerns to the many people. Cancer Council of Southern Australia (2008) in its findings felt that obesity among children is as a result of food marketing policies targeted at children. However, there are other factors on top of the advertisement that have been felt to contribute to obesity of children. These include the eating pattern of children, and the household behaviors.
According to Chapman, Nicholas & Supramaniam (2006), of all the television advertisements directed towards children in Australia, a third are concerned with food, and of these, 80% are usually unhealthy food. In general, the advertisements that children and their families receive are actually messages of food that needs to be used in small quantities. In countering the effects of the advertisement of the marketing firms, the federal government puts its own advertisements to encourage healthy eating, but this is a waste of the taxpayers’ money considering the amount used by the marketing firms. Due to the concerns of the advertisements, several nations among them Norway, Sweden and Britain have banned advertising of food to children (Cancer Council Southern Australia, 2008).
Even though these bans have been effected, there have been no any evaluations done to ascertain how effective the move has been, and where necessary make some changes. This means that children are still vulnerable to food advertisements through other means like the satellite.In areas that have banned the advertisement of food to children, there are still some cross border advertisements that can affect children. For instance, Quebec is also among nations that have banned food advertisement to children.
However, these children are still affected by the advertisements originating from the US. In a research done by Goldberg (1990), it was found that children in the French speaking regions of Quebec did not watch programs from the US, thus had lower consumption of sugary foods as compared to the children in the regions that spoke English. This implies that the English speaking regions were still highly influenced by the advertisements from across the borders.There is little proof showing the effect that banning food advertisement among children can have.
This is due to the fact that little has bee done to ascertain and publish such information. However, looking at the regulation on tobacco advertising that was carried out in Australia, it has helped in making Australia have the lowest rate of smokers in the world. This can still be applied in banning the food advertisements on children. Advertisement of unhealthy foods to children should be stopped for both ethical and health reasons.
Children can not be expected to make informed decisions on the products being advertised as they can not critically analyze advertisement information. Unhealthy food advertisement should thus be banned as they can badly affect the health of a child, hence being unethical to advertise and sell them to children. In a survey conducted by the Cancer Council of South Australia, 86.2 per cent of the parents support the ban of advertising of food during the time children are watching the television, 88.
7 percent felt that the government should have stringent measures over the advertisements carried out on televisions, and 74.6 percent were worried by the mode of the marketing firms using toys in advertising for unhealthy foods targeting children (Morley, 2007).When an advert is carried out on television, it changes the child’s attitude and behavior towards a certain product. These behaviors might have an influence on the mode of purchase of a child.
The attitudes of children are categorized into positive and negative attitudes. Children with positive attitude towards advertisement maintain their behavior even after an advert. However, the children with negative attitude do not purchase a product even after it has been advertised. Older children with negative attitude towards a certain product usually pay less attention towards that product mostly when it is advertised (Evra, 1990).
This has an effect on the sales that an organization gets. In case the television advertisement can not be banned, then the best alternative is to try and create a negative attitude of children towards unhealthy food adverts.In making choices, older children have fewer doubts with their decisions. The choices do not have to always match with the children’s attitude at this stage.
At the age of eleven and above, children’s attitudes towards buying an item is affected by advertisement. This also helps in making comparisons for other alternatives (Wartella, 1979). However, according a research done by Austen, Ruble & Trabasso (1977), they argued that young children tend to form attitude towards an advertised product easily as they diffuse quickly the message carried out in the adverts, and take it as it is carried out in that advert. It is difficult for the children below the age of ten to make comparative analysis by recalling the information that had earlier been stored.
It thus makes it difficult for these children to have a comparison from which to make decisions. This is what leads to the children to buy certain products based on the attitudes they have developed (Wartella et al, 1979).In most of the shopping that involves children, what is purchased for the child is usually as a result of what the child influences. Children tell their parents what they want bought for them, hence contributing to the actual purchase.
On the other hand, parents encourage their children to participate in the purchase. The marketers on the other hand have realized this trend of behavior; hence have come up with strategies to capitalize on this. The younger children show a lot of confidence in the advertisements more than the older children. As Chan & McNeal (2002) found out, the quality of the advertised products is not a very big issue to the older children.
Many parents find it very difficult to control their children to have healthy eating habits especially after they have seen some television adverts on certain food products. By the marketers advertising unhealthy foods to the children, it makes the children to be more interested in having those advertised food products. Therefore, it implies that there is a strong correlation between the advertised food products and the children’s preference. The adverts usually make the children to prefer the advertised food over the healthy foods, which is a reason for the increased obesity cases among children.
Obesity among children is very difficult to deal with and it usually results from complex issues, especially from the change in the eating habits of the family coupled with lack of exercises. Food marketing plays a very significant role in the obesity development among children. Markets use different types of Medias to reach out to their target groups. The food marketers use televisions to reach out to the children customers.
A lot of money (over $ 1 billion) is usually spent on food advertisements that are targeted at children (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2004). A lot of information that is known concerning the adverts that deals with children’s televisions’ food adverts usually arise from the research conducted about the television adverts. Junk food advertisement has escalated obesity among the children.
It is generally evidenced that television adverts plays a very significant role in contributing to obesity among children, whether directly or indirectly. It thus calls for strict regulations measures or banning of these adverts to ensure that parents and the children are protected.Marketing firms have gone ahead in targeting children by advertising through even newsletters and agencies. Marketing firms target children knowing that children can play a significant role in influencing the household shopping.
Many studies have confirmed that children to a great extend influence the parents’ purchasing system. This has been attested also by the fact that as the child spends much time watching television, the more they become demanding to have what they have watched. It is has been estimated that out four adverts that children watch on television, three of them are requested, and the requests ends up to be granted by their parents (Galst & White, 1976). According to Taras et al (1989), there is a direct correlation in the amount of calories that a child as young as three years takes with the number of weekly adverts that are watched.
In a similar study, it was found that the children choice of food is determine by the type of advert that has been watched (Gorn, & Goldberg, 1982).Small exposures of children to commercial adverts have been found to greatly influence what kind of food the children would prefer. Researches have confirmed that many children who like taking fast foods watch a lot of television commercial adverts. This was found among the 7-12 grade students (French, Story, Neumark-Sztainer, Fulkerson, & Hannan, 2001).
In a similar study, middle school children who watched many adverts ended up taking a lot of soft drinks (Giammattei, Blix, Marshak, Wollitzer & Pettitt, 2003). Many children have negative relationship with using healthy foods like fruits and vegetables, although it is highly recommended that children should use these kinds of foods. This has also been attributed to the television adverts that children are exposed to. It is only one out of five children who are found to follow the required healthy eating guidelines (Krebs-Smith et al, 1996).
In a research done by Boynton-Jarrett et al, 2003), in trying to find if viewing television had any impact in the fruit and vegetable consumption among the adolescents, it was confirmed by the use of linear regression that the consumption of these foods decreased depending on the hours the adolescents watched television. This was thus concluded as caused by the television advertisements.Children have been made to believe that fast are rich in more nutrients than foods cooked at home. This was confirmed by a study that indicated that 70 per cent of children aged between six and eight years believed in this norm (Boynton-Jarrett et al 2003).
In essence, the TV adverts gives children very contradictory massages about being healthy. On one hand, children are told to be healthy by being shown successful people in the adverts, but when the food advertised is used by the children, it makes them be obese. This is the paradox that has led many to fight for the banning or instilling tough measures on TV adverts that are directed to children.Reference:Austin, V.
D, Ruble, E. and Trabasso, T (1977): Recall and order effects in children’s moralJudgments, Journal of Child Development, Vol. 48, pp 60-4Bijmolt, T. H.
A., Claassen, W., & Brus, B. (1998): Children’s understanding of TVAdvertising: effects of age, gender, and parental influence.
Journal of ConsumerPolicy, Vol. 21 Issue 2, pp 171–195.Boynton-Jarrett, R., Thomas, T.
, Perterson, K., Wiecha, J., Sobol, A., & Gortmaker S.
(2003): Impact of Television Viewing Patterns on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption among Adolescents , Journal of Pediatrics, Vol. 112, Issue 6, pp 1320-1326.Brand J. E (2007): A Review of Contemporary Research on the Influence of Television Advertising Directed to Children, Retrieved on November, 1st 2008 from http://www.
acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310132/television_advertising_to_children.pdf.
Cancer Council of South Australia (2008): Television advertising and the consumption of unhealthy food and drinks by children, Retrieved on November, 1st 2008 from https://www.cancersa.org.au/cms_resources/documents/Cancer_Council_television_advertising.
pdf.Chan, K. & McNeal, J. (2002): Children’s perceptions of television advertising in urban China.
International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children, Vol. 3, pp 69–79.Chapman K, Nicholas P, Supramaniam R (2006): How much food advertising is there on Australian television? Health Promot Int Vol. 21(3): 172-180.
Evra, V. J. (1990): Television and child development, children youth and family consortium.Electric ClearinghouseFrench S, Story M, Neumark-Sztainer D, Fulkerson J, & Hannan P , (2001): Fast Food Restaurant Use among Adolescents: Associations with Nutrient Intake, Food Choices and Behavioral and Psychological Variables .
International Journal of Obesity, Vol. 25 Issue 3, pp 1823-1833.Galst J & White M (1976): The Reinforcing Value of Television and Children’s Purchase Influence Attempts at the Supermarket. Journal of Child Development Vol.
47 pp 1089-1096.Giammattei, J., Blix, G., Marshak, H, Wollitzer A, & Pettitt D (2003): Television Watching and Soft Drink Consumption: Associations with Obesity in 11-13 Year Old Schoolchildren.
Journal of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescents Medicine, Vol. 157 Issue 9, pp 843.Grossbart, Sanford L. and Lawrence A.
Crosby “Understanding the Bases of ParentalConcern and Reaction to Children’s Food Advertising,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 48, pp 79-92.Goldberg M (1990): A quasi-experiment assessing the effectiveness of TV advertisingDirected to children. Journal of Marketing Research; 27: 445-54.
Gorn G & Goldberg M (1982): Behavioral Evidence of the Evidence of the Effects of Televised Food Messages on Children. Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, pp 200-205.Hastings et al (2003): Review of Research on the Effects of Food Promotion to Children,Holt D.
J et al (2007): Children’s Exposure to TV Advertising in 1977 and 2004 Information for the Obesity DebateKatke (2007): The Impact of television advertising on child health and family spending -ACase Study, Retrieved on November, 1st 2008 from http://dspace.iimk.ac.in/bitstream/2259/359/1/283-286.
pdf.Krebs-Smith, S., Cook, A., Subar, A.
et al., (1996): FRUIT and Vegetable Intakes of Children and Adolescents in the United States. Journal of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescents Medicine, Vol. 150, pp 81-86.
Morley B (2007): National community survey of TV food advertising to children. Centre forBehavioral Research in Cancer, the Cancer Council Victoria Coalition onFood Advertising to Children.Taras et al (1989): Television’s Influence on Children’s Diet and Physical Activity. Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics Vol.
10, pp 176-180.The Impact of Food Advertising on Children’s Diets a Review of the Evidence, Retrieved on November, 1st 2008 from http://www.wfanet.org/pdf/adv_papers/how_advertising_foodchoice.
pdf.The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (2004): The Role of Media in Childhood Obesity. Retrieved on November, 1st 2008 from http://www.
kff.org/entmedia/upload/The-Role-Of-Media-in-Childhood-Obesity.pdfPeter, J.P.
; Olson, J.C. (1994): Understanding Consumer Behavior. United States of America: Irwin, Inc.
Wartella, E., and Alexander, A (1979): The Young child as consumer, in Children Communication: Media and Development of Thought, Speech, and Understanding, E. Wartella, ed. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications;;
