Key main issues - Ankit & Sahil

 Advertising do have a large impact on young children due to their vulnerability,

inexperience and lack of ability to critically reflect on the received information. It can
affect children in many ways and can have serious implications as they often tend to
misinterpret the message conveyed in commercials.
 Children today enjoy wide access to technology which has resulted in a significant
increase in the amount of time children spend on various forms of media. Studies
estimate that children between the ages of 6 and 11 are exposed to as many as
20,000 commercials in a single year.
 The channels to reach youth have grown, and it provide marketers with increasing
opportunities to target children with marketing messages designed to influence their
purchase behaviour. It often blurs the distinction between entertainment and
advertising.
 Advertising encourage the children to persuade their parents to purchase the
products they see in the commercials, whether useful or not.
 Advertising influences the behaviour of both children and adults with respect to food
consumption. The large exposure to commercial food has been linked to problems
for children worldwide, among these problems the issue of child obesity. Recent
studies on this subject found that television advertising influences children aged two
to eleven promoting high calorie, low nutrient foods associated with adiposity.
Insights - Ankit & Sahil

 There is a significant increase in the increase in the amount of time children spend
on various forms of media. Children ages 8-18 now spend an average of seven hours
and 38 minutes a day with televisions, computers, iPods, mobile phones or video
games; moreover, through multitasking they actually consume ten hours and 45
minutes of media content during that time.
 Parents can play a key role in increasing their children’s comprehension of
advertising and counteract potentially undesirable advertising effects by actively
talking with their children about advertising.
 Although children’s food choices are influenced by commercials on television, the
role of the mother is key in mediating advertising messages and limiting purchases.
Mothers set limits on children’s media and product consumption and communicate
consumption knowledge to children directly through conversation and teaching.
 Communication among parents and children is important in children’s development
of scepticism for advertising and promotion. The more intense the parental
discussions of marketing with children, the more likely the children are to
understand the persuasive nature of advertising.
 Parental style is an important factor that helps explain who is more likely to mediate
children’s relationships with television and internet advertising and marketing in
general. The studies on this found that nurturing parents are more involved with
children’s viewing, engaging in co-viewing and discussing advertising with children
more than non-nurturing parents. Authoritarian parents prefer to mediate by
limiting children’s exposure and refusing to yield to market based demands
 From a marketer's perspective, nurturing mothers represent a barrier to reaching
children with persuasive messages. Such mothers not only limit access, but train
children to be sceptical of advertising. Marketers who deal honestly with customers
will be more successful in appealing to nurturing mothers and their market-savvy
children.
 Mothers who are nurturing and not authoritarian are more likely to yield to requests
and favour more regulation than other parents.