No Children's Advertising To Children

Advertising is a tricky tactic in the world of business. Marketers use deceptions and loopholes in regulations to manipulate the masses into buying their product. Children especially are subject to this deception and are usually targeted by companies. Corporations in Canada be should not be allowed to use broadcast media to advertise directly to children in the ways the Canadian standards permit because children are easily influenced and do not yet have the mindset to distinguish imaginary from reality, and will feel second-rate if they do not have the product being advertised. However, the final decision to buying any product is up to the authority figures in the child’s life, like their parents, to teach them that materialism does not bring

These regulations were established to protect children from being directly deceived by any company trying to promote their products to them. The Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children has various rules and standards. Many of which include: No children 's advertising may employ any device or technique that attempts to transmit messages below the threshold of normal awareness. Products not intended for use by children advertised either directly or through promotions that are primarily child-oriented. Price and purchase terms, when used, must be clear and complete. Children 's advertising must not encourage or portray a range of values that are inconsistent with the moral, ethical or legal standards of contemporary Canadian society. Children 's advertising must not imply that possession or use of a product makes the owner superior or that without it the child will be open to ridicule or contempt. This prohibition does not apply to true statements regarding educational or health benefits (Advertising Standards Canada). As many of the these laws and regulations are reasonable, they are by no means morally justifiable because they are too general and companies easily work around these regulations and are able to broadcast as they please, though

It is not to say that the laws do not protect children at all. It’s just that it is an era of half-truths and greed. Companies simply don’t care what their consumers do with their products, as long as they are ‘following’ official standards and making money. An example of laws of advertising to children not being morally justifiable is McDonald’s kids’ meals commercials linking to factor of child obesity. When a child watches a kids’ meals ad on T.V, with the McDonald’s mascot Ronald McDonald and his colorful friends, or a brand new toy a child will get with their meal, it will influence the child thinking that the happy meal is a wonderful product. “Advertising, in and of itself, is harmful to children… Marketing targets emotions, not intellect. It trains children to choose products not for the actual value of the product, but because of celebrity or what 's on the package. It undermines critical thinking and promotes impulse buying" (Watson). The problem is that kids under the age of twelve are still young. They are not able think about beyond what they see on the packaging of a product. They also find it hard to distinguish the imaginary from the realty, meaning that children cannot figure whatever lies the advertisers are