Assignment 3: Ethics in Advertising

For my third assignment I’m going to discuss the ethics in advertising to for children.

Marketing an ad so it will be ethical correct is hard. It seems that no matter what somebody will always feel insulted. The line between good targeting and ethic targeting is very thin and so often crossed these days. Today see you more and more advertising to children and it are not just toys anymore. The whole children industry has expand from clothes to cell phones and iPods. And this is to children that don’t even know the real value of a dollar or any other currency. The children today watch more television that the children did 20 years ago, just as the children 20 years ago did something that their parents didn’t do. So marketing to a target like children couldn’t be easier these days with all of the commercials. The children themselves have become just another channel to get to the one with the money, the parents. By using children they have created a nag factor to get the parents to buy their products.

Some countries may have laws to prevent this sort of commercial. Like in Sweden you not allowed to advertise to children under 12 years old if it's broadcasted within the country. But there is always ways to get around laws like this. In Sweden’s case, most of the networks are not broadcast within the country. Instead it’s broadcast from the UK which doesn’t have that law.

The question is if children really need cell phones and iPods. In the end I think it’s up to the parents that decide what’s best for their children. But here is the difficult part, some parents will buy these things for their children while others won’t. That’s makes it a market for things like that and the companies will of course take advantage of the situation. But is it really ethical to try to make a child brand loyal in this early in life because that’s what they are going to be further in live? And if a child in the age of 9 can have a cell phone these days, how long is it going to take before they get a credit card? Sounds scary to me, but I think that’s the possible future we are heading towards.

In my opinion I think it’s unethical to advertising to children. They are too young to know what’s right and wrong. They are manipulating by the commercials and the ad agencies have not a hard time with their positioning. This is, of course, a shortcut for the companies instead of going to the parents right away. I think that would be a better way instead of turning to the kids. They way to prevent this kind of advertising to children would be if a global ethic advertising law was created. Only then the directives would be clearer for the seller and buyer.