Soc172a Advertising and Society

1
Soc172aAdvertising and Society

• Lecture 12
• Advertising and Children

2
Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children

• Recognition that young children have difficulty
  distinguishing fantasy from reality
• Across Canada (except Quebec, where advertising
  to children is prohibited by law), commercials
  aimed at children under 12 follow guidelines set
  out in the Broadcast Code for Advertising to
  Children.
• Under CRTC regulations, compliance with code
  provisions is a condition of licence for Canadian
  broadcasters

3
Code (cont.)

• Covers all ads directed at children
• Must be factual and realistic in intent
• Cannot advertise other products, or drugs,
  medications, etc.
• Cannot urge or persuade children to buy
• Strict airing guidelines (once/half hour, no more
  than 4 minutes/half hour)
• Cannot use well-known childrens figures (real or
  fictional) to promote childrens products)
• Strict pricing and comparison regulations
• Cannot promote unsafe acts, improper values, or
  make false claims about product.

4
Ethics Issues

• APA (2000) questions use of psychological
  persuasion tactics in US childrens advertising
• Recommends develop a code similar to Canadian
  code
• Canadian children exposed to great deal of
  American advertising

5
The Commercialization of Childhood

• Consuming Kids The Commercialization of
  Childhood (MEF)
• Is it ethical to create a whole new generation of
  super consumers through advertising?

6
Advertising Directed at Children and Teens

• Marketing campaigns directed at children worth
  more that 2 billion
• Marketers rely on pester power
• In addition to ads, use techniques like viral
  (buzz) marketing, TV show and movie tie-ins,
  and extensive use of the Internet (a youth
  medium)
• Focus on establishing brand loyalty at very young
  age
• In addition, cash-strapped schools are becoming
  increasingly commercialized

7
Pester Power and Nagging

• Clips from The Corporation
• Marketing to Kids 1
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vWMDPql6rweofeature
  related
• Marketing to Kids 2
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vYnXoeP-S_0INR1

8
Advertising in Schools Captive Audience

• Clip from Captive Audience (MEF 2006)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vINJqXB_qFbofeature
  related

9
Marketing Cool to Teens

• McChesney (The Merchants of Cool, 2000) comments
  that advertisers increasingly play on young
  peoples insecurities and desire to fit in with
  their peers
• Advertise products as the way to be cool
• MarketResearch.com projected kids' direct buying
  power to approach 52 billion by 2006

10
A Few Stats

• By 2007, 57 of children age 11 or younger
  online.
• Television viewing nearly universal among
  children.
• Ninety-eight percent of 4- to 6-year olds watch
  TV
• 61 of all children have a TV in their bedroom.
• average child sees 55 TV commercials daily.
• 4 billion in annual spending in U.S. controlled
  directly by kids
• The U.S. food industry has determined that
  youngsters between age 5 and 14 have considerable
  influence over the 30 billion spent on food and
  beverages each year. Kids reportedly control 10
  billion of these purchases.
• Teenagers and "tweens" (age 8-14) account for
  6.9 billion in cosmetics sales for hair and skin
  products.
• (http//www.directmag.com/exclusive/specialreports
  /2004_may_12_direct_listline_0/index.html)

11
Research on Childrens Ads

• New studies show that
• Food ads influence children to overeat (British
  study reported in Ottawa Citizen 2007)
• APA task force (2004) found that children under
  eight unable to critically comprehend
  advertising messages and are prone to accept
  advertiser messages as truthful, accurate and
  unbiased
• Product preference can occur after one exposure
• Children show positive attitudes toward drinking
  and violence as result of advertising

12
The Childrens Advertising Initiative

• In Feb. 2008, the CRTC and ASC reached an
  agreement with 12 leading food marketers in
  Canada to focus on promoting healthy food
  choices, in accordance with Canadas Food Guide
  to children under 12 years.
• See ASC press release
• See also Kelloggs Fact Sheet (online reading)

13
Children and Tobacco

• PowerWall Video put out by NSRA
• http//www.nsra-adnf.ca/cms/file/video/tobaccochil
  dren.wmv
• This is also a form of advocacy advertising

14
Gender Issues in Childrens Ads

• Griffiths argues that children learn sex-typed
  behaviour from television, especially ads
• Girls will watch shows and ads aimed at boys, but
  boys prefer male offerings
• Result that more ads aimed at boys (3 x more)
• Narrators and voice-overs tend to be male
• Ads aimed at girls tended to emphasize passive
  behaviour and in-home settings while ads aimed
  at boys promote active behaviour and
  out-of-home settings

15
Gender and Production Differences

• Griffiths and Chandler found statistically
  significant production differences in childrens
  ads
• Girls ads used more tilt-up shots, boys ads
  more tilt-down shots
• Boys ads are faster paced (i.e. active)
• More use of dissolves in girls ads
• Musical differences (i.e. rock music for boys)
• More male voiceovers

16
Other Production Differences

• Boys ads feature
• bolder primary colours
• Aggressive and competitive behaviour
• Example 2008 GI Joe Ad
• Girls ads feature
• softer pastels
• Cooperative and relational behaviour
• Example 2008 Barbie ad

17
Other Problems

• Johnson and Gannon (see online reading examples)
  found that males and females portrayed in rigid,
  stereo-typical gendered roles and activities
• Portrayals of race improved but class portrayals
  were mostly white, middle class
• Media aimed at children overly violent
• Proliferation of program length advertisements
  and movies (i.e. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
• 80 of childrens ads for toys and games,
  cereals, candies, and fast food restaurants