Marketing to Kids Ethically – Part 2

I was asked last week: “Is advertising targeted directly at children correct or not?”

I did think about it but I knew the answer I would give as it is the same every time I’m asked, and it has been asked on many occasions, most especially in recent years.

I believe that all advertising reaches children.

Children are huge consumers of media and contrary to popular belief they do not consume the majority of this watching children’s TV channels! Children are to be found in far greater numbers watching “adult” TV. They are constant companions to soaps, reality shows and entertainment. This doesn’t mean they are not watching children’s shows, especially when younger, and therefore directly targeted advertising reaches them, but they see just as much if not more adult targeted advertising than they do their own brands.

In the UK many food brands are banned from advertising on children’s TV, but this doesn’t mean they can’t advertise to children in huge numbers by advertising in The X-Factor for example. Many advertisers make the most of this and then can claim they are targeting mums and adults and not fall foul of rules governing what children can see. Cereal manufacturers are of course at the forefront of this.

Back to the question!

In my opinion you can advertise to children provided you are not exploiting them. Of course the next question is what is exploitation when marketing to kids.

I’ll get to that in part 3!