No. Absolutely not. Advertisers use all kinds of underhanded techniques to screw kids heads around and get them to nag their parents for unnecessary and unhealthy products!
Yes, absolutely. In our society kids are given disposable income in order to learn the value of money; they should be pitched to if we want them to develop a critical facility w/r/t advertising. As to large purchases, the parents (if they’re doing their job) serve as gatekeepers such that the children are protected. Finally, Transformers were fuckin’ cool – if there was no kid-directed advertising, there’d be no support for a toy industry, and toys are vital for children to develop reasoning, creative, and motor skills, as well as the just generally have a good time.
–Cliffy
Could you define “kids?” Do you mean little kids or teenagers? My answer to this question would be different for each of the following groups:
–Pre-school age (up to 6 years old)
–Elementary school age (6-12)
–High school age (13-18)
Never. For what need, other than to try to get kids to nag whipped and/or overindulgent parents and grandparents?
Minimal. Children at this age are just learning about unlimited wants and limited resources. These images start to make children feel like they are the exception is they don’t have toy ‘x’. Life is stressful enough for children; they don’t need this added.
I’d like to say minimal, but that’s not going to happen. Unfortunately, there is little way to keep advertising meant for a strictly 18+ range from this range, and the marketing companies know that making the appeal a ‘forbidden fruit’ for young teens equals money in the bank (just ask the tobacco companies).
Personally, I’d like to see advertisements for any product in all age ranges to be substance over style. I’d also like to win the lottery. I’ve better chances on the latter.
It would be ideal for advertising to be offlimits for kids but thats not going to happen. Look at what drives the record industry, and you wonder why the horrible music just won’t go away-because kids buy it.
So? Are said parents incapable of saying no? Seems to me it’s a good life lesson to let little Bobby and Susie know that just because they want something, just because something is really cool, just because everybody has it, well, that doesn’t mean they should have it too. It’s also a great opportunity to teach kids to be smart consumers. However, this assumes that the parents are smart consumers…
Don’t get me wrong - I’m no fan of advertisements. But I don’t think it’s the advertisers’ responsibility to temper their ads.
I’ve been on both sides of this issue. While I almost never watch TV, I bought one for my daughter when she was 8 (she’s now 11). She watches it for a certain period almost every day, and is mesmerized to zombiehood, both by the programs and the commercials. Almost from the start, she would exclaim, “Dad! Come quick and see the K-Tel Easy Melon Baller! We’ve gotta get six of those!” And I would wanna puke, seeing her turned into a mindless tool of the industry, and wanting to strangle the sumbitches who were responsible for parading that drivel in front of my Baby. Then I had the two epiphanies most of you are itching to slap me with.
- I was the one controlling her viewing. I limited the amount of time and the allowed channels. I could choose to ban commercial TV. That would have likely caused a mutiny, since she really likes animated cartoons, but who said parenting was easy?
- This was a great opportunity for some Life Lessons. Slowly, over time, and not without liberal doses of sarcasm, I was able to get her to see what the advertisers’ motives were. Eventually, she was deprogrammed, and I even got the rare treat of seeing her roll her eyes and dish a little sarcasm of her own when one of her friends gushed about the latest fad du jour.
So I’d say I’m glad she learned the lesson early, when she was most receptive to it. Don’t know if I’d have handled this differently if she’d been a lot younger before this exposure, though.
Of course advertising should be directed at children. How else will they learn to fit into our society as good little consumers? Teaching them to covet at a young age ensures healthy corporate profits in the future.
Consume, Consume, Consume.
Toys.
Aiming the advertising for these at adults is pointless.
It seems quite fair to aim toy commercials at kids. I feel it would be unreasonable to object.
How about a mandatory class to help kids recognize and deconstruct the various advertising tricks that are thrown at them? Sort of a “consumer awareness 101”.
If we’re going to bombard them with advertising all their lives, the least we can do is give them some tools to fight back.
–DP