Advertising, the Media and Marketing Communications

Should children (and other vulnerable groups) be protected from contemporary advertising practices?
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The spending power of parents affects family decisions, and parents increasingly base their buying habits depending on their children’s preferences (Calvert 2008: 215). Even though, children are vulnerable, there is less agreement on the ethics surrounding advertisement targeted at vulnerable groups. The advertising lobby groups view advertising as being informative to the extent that consumers can grow more confident about products (Tylee 2007:21). Nonetheless, there are concerns that advertisers use manipulative tactics which are geared towards increasing consumerism. There are opposing arguments on whether there ought to be a ban on advertisements targeting children, where supporters of the ban state that children do not have the maturity to decode these messages and are unfair. On the other hand, there are those who argue that, as children get older they are able to identify and differentiate advertising. This essay gives a background on the need for protection to vulnerable groups with regards to advertising, it also highlights on ethical issues related to advertising, the association between cognitive theories of psychology as well as the effect of persuasive ads and marketing programmes
In the UK, Advertising Codes of practice give the guidelines on what is permitted when targeting children, while also emphasizing on the need to maintain social responsibility and avoid misleading messages, including those that cause harm or offence to vulnerable persons including children. Even though, there is no agreement on whether children are legitimate consumers, there is consensus that it is crucial to have some form of regulation in order to ensure that advertisers are socially responsible (Moore 2004;164). There are various forms of advertising that can be inappropriate for children and vulnerable groups. For instance, secularised imagery and marketing of junk food target to children may give them the wrong ideas. It is not entirely possible to limit and prevent children seeing all ads that are inappropriate, and as such the debates on the effect of advertising and marketing on children.
Advertising is a crucial tool to enable the target audience to understand about a product, enhance product recognition and choice of brand. Marketing and advertising cannot be ignored for their role in enhancing how people’s product preference. However, in doing so, there is a need to take into account the ethical concerns on providing accurate information to vulnerable groups and children (Buijzen 2007:413). In any case, the vulnerable groups should be protected, whereby the right of privacy and providing information in a way that does not exploit the vulnerable groups should be adhered to (Cowell 2000: 26). Marketing target to minority groups also ought to be ethical and socially responsible. Since children have a limited capability to evaluate information, advertisers have the responsibility to protect them against susceptibilities.
The debate surrounding the commercialization of advertising targeted at children and vulnerable people has elicited debate on the effect and implications on the life of these target groups (Cowell, 2000:27). There is an increase in the amount of money spent towards child-directed advertising, showing that the commercial world has increasingly influenced the children habits through advertisements and marketing. In any case, children in the western world are more likely to be exposed to television commercials more than ever before because of consumer culture. This culture has propagated the view that in order to be happy and successful consumption is necessary even when the marketed products may not necessarily be beneficial to children and vulnerable persons (Rigby & Preston, 2004).
To highlight on the impact of the commercial world on advertising, there is a need to focus on family life and the broader economy. There is growing evidence that there is a shift on how people perceive the relationship between the commercial world and children (Griffiths, 2013:3). Essentially, attention is geared towards the way media products are utilised on every day life as opposed to earlier times, when the traditional perspective focusing on effects of media (Moore, 2004: 163). In the contemporary life, the role of the media is seen as a fact of life, showing that there is a need to adapt as well as learning and negotiating since it is one of the factors that affect development (Griffiths, 2013:4). Since marketing are more involved in the socialisation of children, then understanding the impact of commercial media on childhood and the lives of vulnerable people validate the argument that adhering to ethical practice should not be ignored.
Even though, advertising predates the era of the mass media, there is a concern that advertising and marketing to vulnerable persons has become widespread. The adoption of the radio and television made the process of advertising and marketing to reach out more to specific groups (O’Guinn et al 2013:65). At the same time, the cable television has allowed programmes to focus on programming only targeted to children and vulnerable people. The growth of the internet has then provided opportunities for advertisers to rely on web based advertising content by focus exclusively to child-oriented content. Another aspect that has led to growth in advertisement and marketing to children is the privatization of media use among children. Children are more likely to have unsupervised access to the internet and television, and this may explain the growth in marketing campaigns aimed at children, given that advertisers and markets understand that children can easily be persuaded to buy products.
  The commodities bought for children affect the parents’ spending habits highlighting the potential conflict between ethical marketing/ advertising and the consumer culture. Regardless of the profit motive in advertising products to children and vulnerable groups, there are ethical issues that show the need to integrate ethics in marketing tactics (Mitchell, 2004:670). In any case, there is no agreement on whether children get permission from their parents or whether they understand the negative effects of some of the advertised products. As such adherence to the code and pressure from consumer groups help to shape the debate on the most appropriate recommendations. The ethical framework surrounding advertising to vulnerable people takes into account the values, stakeholders and processes.
Advertisements targeted at vulnerable people and children alone, are at times unethical as they seek to exploit an opportunity without focusing on the potential harmful effects on the consumers (Bradbury, 2000: 74). In particular, children are naive given that the stage of human development limits them from making the nest decisions that affects their lives. Children also tend to pick up ideas around them and adverting may have a more profound effect on children (Strasburge, 2006:2567). In any case, both vulnerable persons and children may place so much trust on marketers. Hence, they are in a position where they cannot make decisions in a sober way, making them ripe for exploitation.
In advertising before the intended audience can understand the message, they need to differentiate between the commercial and non commercial content. In this case, differentiating the ads from the programmes is crucial. However, for children this is not the case as they may not necessarily separate the ads from the programme contents (O’Barr, 2008). In case where they are able to spot the difference, then there is a tendency to focus on the affective or perceptual aspects of commercials. The target audience also needs to comprehend the persuasive aim of advertising and this affects the way people perceive the messages (Rozendaal et al., 2013:145. In other words, there is recognition that advertisers may have different perspectives compared with the buyer, but the communication may be biased, and this affects the meaning attached to the messages (Lawlor & Prothero, 2003: 412. Children and vulnerable people may not fully understand that persuasion is a top priority when aiming commercials more appealing, and this is because of the cognitive level of development especially for children.
The cognitive psychologists presuppose that the consumer is predictable, since advertisers need to understand how consumer desires work. This approach further assumes that the consumers understand the ads just like the normal communication process (Cluley n.d, 5).The information processing model is one of the most prominent approaches to explain how advertisers can persuade consumers. To begin with, there is a need to define the receiver, and this includes children and vulnerable persons. The consumers then ought to be in a position where they can comprehend the message, this is followed by retention of information and it may influence the decision making process (Cluley n.d: 5).
The role of psychology in advertising cannot be overlooked given that businesses rely on persuasion and building brand awareness to reach out to more consumers (Jeffery, 2010:75). The cognitive theories of psychology capture some of the aspects in advertising since perceptual and attitudinal effects affect the way advertisement reach out to the intended target. The cognitive theory focuses on how the thought process affects peoples’ attitudes, actions and their interaction. This could explain the differences between how children think in comparison to adults. Advertisers use appeal to ensure that there advertisements are memorable, and cumulative exposure to different formats of advertisements may result to a change in their behaviours (Verhellen, 2014: 242). Children typically learn form the environment, but since they are fully developed there are limitations on how children utilise their learning experiences.
The main argument in the cognitive theory of psychology is that there are various phases of development and each successive stage has different attributes from the preceding phase. The earliest stage is the sensorimotor period where children are below the age of 2, and children merely have mental representations of what surrounds them. The preoperational s...