Advertising

Advertising is currently in society everywhere as learnt from this weeks seminar. Gunter (2005) defines that the main function of an advert is to send a message about a brand successfully to effect consumers’ perceptions of the brand, to render the brand more necessary, and to create an intention to buy, to ensuing purchase. This blog post will identify whether advertising influences children’s perceptions of themselves, children being viewed as a consumer and whether children should learn about advertising in primary school.

To begin with, the aspect of whether advertising influences children’s perceptions of themselves is a major debate within advertisement. As learnt from the previous seminar, adverts are solely stereotypical, for example seeing boys playing with action men and girls playing with a Barbie. Adler (1977) explains that advertising raises unwanted social values in children, with materialism most often. This view backs up my opinion on adverts influencing children’s perceptions.

The debate of whether should children be viewed as consumers are on-going.  More and Lutz (2000) state that there is convincing evidence that a well-crafted advertisement can influence children that a product is necessary. On the other hand Adler (1977) mentions that defenders of children's advertising have argued that it contributes to children's general understanding of the economic environment and, more concretely, that it contributes to the development of children's product knowledge and consumer skills. These two differing views portray that on one hand children should be viewed as consumers and on the other children should not. Calvert (2008) has identified that advertising to children over time has increased as the income of children and their power to influence parent purchases have increased over time. This impacts on parent/child relationships as discussed in the seminar, that the power of advertising can cause a rift between social connections with between parents not giving in to their child with buying something the child has seen on an advertisement. Moore and Moschis (1981) believe that parents are involved in the socialisation of the child and the values brought to TV viewing.  As a future teacher, the belief that children should not be viewed as a consumer is particularly important to me.

The last question of whether children should learn about advertising in school can be related back to Adler’s (1977) belief that children need to understand about advertisement. Burrell and Beard (2010) in a similar view believe that there is a need for children studying advertising to consolidate and extend the recent interest in non-fiction writing. In particular persuasive writing. Oates, Blades, Gunter and Don (2003) concluded that children’s understanding of the persuasive intent of television advertising is less well developed than previously thought, challenging current marketing perspectives. As a teacher and understanding the ways in which children engage with advertising, by what type of adverts interests them, we can teach children about the effects advertising has. This authorises children to see to power of advertisement and reveal all the different techniques that it encounters.

 

Bibliography

Adler, R. (2000). Research on the Effects of Television Advertising on Children. [pdf] Accessed at: < http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED145499.pdf> [Accessed on 12 February 2014].

Burrell, A. and Beard, R. (2010). Children's advertisement writing. Literacy. 44 (2), Pp 83 - 90.

Calvert, S. (2008). Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing. The Future of Children. 18 (1), Pp 205 - 234.

Gunter, B. Oates, C. and Blades, M. (2005). The Issues about Television Advertising to Children. New Jersey: Laurence Erlbaum Associates . Pp 1-14.

Moore, E. and Lutz, R. (2000). Children, Advertising, and Product Experiences. Journal of Consumer Research. 27 (1), Pp 31 - 48.

Moore, R. and Moschis, P. (1981). The Role of Family Communication in Consumer Learning. Journal of Communication. 31 (4), Pp 42 - 51.

Oates, C. Blades, M. Gunter, B. and Don, J. (2003). Children's understanding of television advertising: A qualitative approach. Journal of Marketing Communications. 9 (2), Pp 59 - 71.