Children are exposed to ads everywhere: on television, on the Internet, on busses and billboards. There are vast amounts of advertisements for chocolate, cereal, toys, and games. Toddlers can recognize up to 12 logos and request specific products that are being advertised to them.

Advertisement overload

An average child sees 40,000 commercials a year on broadcast television. On average 86% of these commercials are for fast food, cereal, candy and toys while only 2% of all commercials are for fruit and vegetable products.

Are children consumers?

Marketers and advertisers understand that kids have significant influence over household spending. A report released by the Institute of Medicine, Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? found that over $11 billion dollars a year is spent on marketing food and beverages to children in the United States. And the main goal is to turn children into life-long consumers.

Pester power

Parents and advertisers both know that children can be persistent in their request for the things they see in commercials. But the so-called ‘pester power‘ does more than just boost sales of a product. It also increases parent-child conflict. Many commercials feature popular characters to boost the appeal to kids, undermining the parents’ attempt to choose healthy diets for their kids. Junk-food commercials advertise toys that come with their kids meals or use cartoon characters to appeal to kids. And with 40,000 of these messages being broadcast to each child every year, parents don’t have the resources to compete.

What can parents do?

Children younger than eight cannot understand the difference between program content and commercials. Children take advertised claims about a product literally, and they don’t realize that the intent of the commerical is to get them to buy things. This is especially true when their favourite character is promoting a product. Talk to your kids about advertisements and commercials. Explain to them how advertising works and what advertisers are trying to accomplish with the commercial.

You can play spot-the-product-placement game. Watch movies or TV shows and try to find logos or specifically placed products in the show. This will help your child think critically about ads and product placement.

You can limit your children’s exposure to advertising on the Internet by choosing great websites that don’t advertise to children. Most sites that are free have advertisements and banners. While online, they can accidently click on the flashy ad thinking that it’s just part of the website.

Encourage your kids to think critically about marketing messages. Ask your child questions like, ‘Do you think the product is as good as it’s shown on TV? How does this commercial make you feel?’ When targeting children, advertisers try to portray happiness and fun in the commercial rather than talk about the product itself.

Do you have any tips or suggestions on how to teach children about advertising? Or how to defeat pester power? Leave a comment below!

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