Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing

From the journal The Future of Children, a collaboration of The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution, this article investigates product marketing to United States (US) children and shows that "although marketers have targeted children for decades, two recent trends have increased their interest in child consumers. First, both the discretionary income of children and their power to influence parent purchases have increased over time. Second, as the enormous increase in the number of available television channels has led to smaller audiences for each channel, digital interactive technologies have simultaneously opened new routes to narrow cast to children, thereby creating a growing media space just for children and children's products."


According to the author, children are especially vulnerable to marketing strategies, including advertising on television and online that features toys and new food products, and so-called stealth marketing techniques that embed products in the programme content of films, in sites online, and in video games, because those children younger than eight "lack the cognitive skills to understand the persuasive intent of television and online advertisements. The new stealth techniques can also undermine the consumer defences even of older children and adolescents."


"Because interactive media incorporate and build on a child's actions, they have an edge over traditional media like television in tailoring their message. In particular, an interactive medium is “smart” and can potentially take into account each learner's knowledge base and adapt the message accordingly. In an interactive medium, advertisers can transmit their message effectively by responding explicitly to the user's developmental level and knowledge base—a distinct advantage when marketers are trying to persuade a child or adolescent to buy a product, particularly given the varying knowledge bases during the childhood years."


The author explains that US government regulations implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission, including, for example, time allocation for television advertising and distinct transitions between programming and advertising, provide some protection for children from advertising and marketing practices. Online protections of the federal government are focused on protecting children's privacy by regulation of information collected from them, but they are challenging to enforce in the age of spyware and other kinds of unregulated information collection. The author concludes that marketing to children and adolescents in the US will persist despite varying degrees of regulation of television and online advertising.