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Childhood Marketing Ethics Paper

1221 Words5 Pages

The process of childhood marketing is extremely unethical. Ethics can be defined as: “A part of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions” (Mitchell, 2014, p. 62). Firstly, children are exposed to advertisement, media and marketing twenty four hours a day seven days a week (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). Marketers try to get into a child’s mind with television, commercials, internet, billboards, and products. This strategy of marketing is very profitable but, can also be harmful for children. Marketers pull on a child’s heart strings by making an emotional attachment between the child and a well-known character (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). Putting a beloved character such as Spongebob or Mickey Mouse on products helps sell the product. A child feels obligated to have a product when they see a branded character on the box (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). Using children’s emotions to sell products is unethical. Secondly, The Girls Intelligence Agency (GIA) and other marketing agencies are unethical. The GIA gives young girls material possessions in exchange for Intel and insight on their friends and family. (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). The GIA has over one hundred …show more content…

The government needs to regulate media consumption in order to protect children from a lifetime of chronic effects. Secondly, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) needs to get its power back. Up to nineteen eighty four the FTC had all the power to regulate media consumption. There were virtually no effects on children. When the government revoked the FTC’s power, problems started to emerge. This caused an increase in health problem among children as well as the rise a materialistic society. Thus, the government and the FTC need to work together to stop the negative consequences of media

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In Schlosser’s article, “Kid Kustomers” the main argument is that major ad agencies are focusing to much time advertising to children. He uses multiple topics and threads to portray the negative effects of marketing to children. Using the example of Fast Food industries partnering up with toy companies to appeal to the younger consumer and goes into the effects the children have on their parents as a consumer. Using the example of fast food Industries backs up his claim when marketing to children can be bad. Fast food companies are already unhealthy and when they paired up with big toy companies the influence on the child is even greater.

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The unique vulnerabilities of the children raise serious ethical questions about the marketers who exploit these vulnerabilities to make profits. At the heart of the debate is the infringement of the rights of the kids by the marketers. Immanuel Kant, the 17th Century German Philosopher, in his influential works, The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and The Critique of Practical Reason, has given us a philosophical frame work for evaluating the right and wrong. To set the standards high for evaluating whether advertising to kids is ethical or not, it will appropriate to apply the Kantian theory to examine the

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INTRODUCTION In this assignment, I will discuss the ethical issues in marketing to children from a utilitarianism perspective. Marketing to children can be defined as the “act of marketing or advertising products or services to children”. There have been controversies surrounding the issue of marketing to children with regard to whether it is ethical or unethical. Utilitarianism on the other hand is defined as the ethical theory which finds the basis of moral distinctions in the utility of actions (their fitness to produce happiness).

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