So, I am currently in a journalism course that is focused on ethics in media and over the last couple of weeks we have been discussing the media-ethics issues in marketing and advertising.
We discussed product placement, ethnic stereotyping, gender-specific stereotyping as well as advertising and marketing to children. Marketing and advertising to children was our main focus as there are many ethical issues in place when dealing with it.
In the class we watched a very well done documentary about marketing and advertising to children called, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. The film discusses, in great detail, the different channels that marketing and advertising companies use to target children. One of the marketing and advertising channels the film focuses on is the Internet.
Companies use a plethora of different online marketing strategies targeted at children, such as:
- Links and apps sent to their mobile phones (this way parents aren’t even aware of it or they find out when they get the phone bill and at that point it is too late to do anything about it).
- Other downloadable content to cell phones.
- Online “games.” Company websites have interactive games targeted at kids – again kids and their parents are not even aware of the fact that they being advertised to.
- Chat rooms, such as Webkinz (a website that allows kids to join only after buying a product and then entering a code – the website then allows kids to chat, play games and shop some more).
In the film, all these different marketing strategies are looked at in order to add to the debate of whether or not, marketing and advertising, when it is directed toward children, should be regulated by the government or strictly the parent’s responsibility. It is an American made film, where currently there are no government regulations on advertising to children.
However, here in Canada, where there are government imposed restrictions on marketing to children, we still face the same issues when it comes to online marketing directed towards children because of the lack of regulations placed on the Internet. Which leads me to my question for you, what can be done (if you think anything should be done) to regulate online marketing and advertising directed towards children? Also, do you think online marketing to children is ethical? Why, or why not?
***Side note: The documentary about advertising and marketing to children (linked above) is actually really interesting and worth the watch if you have an hour to spare (and the whole think is on YouTube, so it’s free!).
I think we are in a world now where from a young age we are bombarded with advertisements. I remember at Christmas time when i was a kid on TV there were so many commericals for toys etc. And there were some things I only wanted because the AD for it made it look cool! Now it has shifted from TV to the internet. But the difference is the internet is harder to control and parents are more unaware. A part of it seems okay because companies do need to market their product but the things that seem unethical are the subscriptions that go to a cell phone because it is so easy to click. These should have to be bought with a credit card and not just charged to the cell phone bill. But it is hard, how do we control it?
ReplyDeleteI think there is nothing wrong with marketing to children. If you own a company, say a toy shop, your promotional campaigns should be geared towards children or you business will fail. An owner of a business which specializes in children products has the right to run a successful business. There is however a fine line on what a company can and should not do. I don’t agree with chat rooms just because it opens them up to the treat of child predators. As for phone apps, I think that children shouldn’t have a phone in the first place and it is up to the parent to monitor what their children are doing when they are browsing online. The responsibility of what children see and do has to fall on the parents.
ReplyDelete@Laura Davis - Figuring our how to control it is definitely the hard part. In Canada there are rules and regulations in place that help to monitor television advertisement directed at children (and in Quebec, they do not allow any advertising directed towards children under the age of 13). However, the problem is these laws only apply to advertising produced in Canada and, as we all know, most of the advertising we see in Canada is produced in the U.S. And in the U.S. there are no restrictions on advertising to children (it's one the few developed countries in the world where there are no restrictions on the matter).
ReplyDelete@Shanel Mishtra - I agree with you that businesses have the right to run a successful business and I don't think that all advertising to children is bad but the lengths that many companies are going to these days, to market their products to children, is more than a little disconcerting. One of their main strategies for advertising to children is to prey on thier insecurities (it's like peer pressure on steroids). There are also organizations that set up "marketing parties" where they send products to a child and then that child's friend come over and they decided what is "cool" and are then encouraged to basically sell the product to other kids at school. It's pretty creepy. These companies are basically turning these kids into their personal marketers. In the movie that I link in my blog post, the kids who attended these marketing "parties" even said that they knew what they were doing was kind of bad but they didn't mind because they got free stuff.
I, also, think that the majority of the responsibility of what children are exposed to should fall on the parents, but in the world we live in today with and just the sheer volume of advertising that kids are exposed to everyday (more than 3000 ads a day), there is no way a parents can be expected to protect their child(ren) from it at all times. I think some government involvement would be beneficial, if only to intervene when companies are crossing certain ethical lines.