Children are vulnerable to advertising

Advertisers spend crores of rupees every year in creating a climate conducive to consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of advertising as these companies are increasingly targeting them in a variety of ways. The reason: children are emerging as a major influencing factor when it comes to decision-making.

Advertising and marketing companies are well aware of this trend. They also realise that a child’s spending and preference pattern determines how and on what s/he will spend on when she grows up.

A thought-provoking article in an issue of the US magazine, Week elaborates on how children represent three different markets. They are primary purchasers, they have a big influence on their parent/s spending pattern, and they represent the future market. Brand loyalties are formed when children are young and are carried through to adulthood. And this is something that market strategists are quick to capitalise on, for their ends.

This reality is becoming more apparent even in the Indian context where children figure in an entire range of product ads ranging from shoes and fast foods to computer products and cars. For example, one car advertisement shows a child urging his father to go for a drive so that he is not questioned about his mark sheet. Studies have shown that nowadays children influence the preference for a car over a two-wheeler and a motorbike over buying a scooter.

The Week gives a detailed break-up of the development of a consumer pattern in children according to what they see around them – in the lives of their parents and in the media.

Development Of a Consumer

• From age one the child accompanies the parents on shopping sprees and observes all sorts of goodies.
• Between age two to three the child starts demanding things, and begins making connections between what s/he see on television and the products available in stores. The list of demands starts increasing.
• By age four to five children start selecting items with their parents’ permission. They begin identifying brands.
• Simultaneously, the child is learning how to get parents to respond to demands. Whining and screaming are forms of this tactic – indeed tears are necessary. Almost all children learn to persuade their parents.
• From age six onwards the child can go to the store herself and make her own purchase. The final step in the development of a consumer is learning how to pay for a purchase.As an advertising saying goes, ‘If you own this child at an early age,… you can own this child for years to come’.As marketing strategies based themselves on these patterns, child psychologists are questioning the ethics of targeting children through advertisements. They reason that till the age of eight or nine, children are unable to understand the intention behind advertising, thus it is unethical to target them.