Despicable Me 2 Rhetorical Analysis

In the food and beverage industry, chief marketing officers have preyed on children as they are seen as an influential market force. These companies are not acting with their best intentions for children, but are rather using negative endeavors of advertising unhealthy foods and beverages to target children. Children are seen as a profit and lifelong customers from the moment they are drawn in using something as simple as a toy with their meal. Recently I saw a McDonald’s advertisement centered on the characters from the children’s movie “Despicable Me 2” known as Minions. The advertisement briefly mentioned the food portion of the meal because it was too focused on the Minion toys that were being sold with Happy Meals. The chief marketing

The methods of marketing to persuade children may seem unscrupulous because of the mere fact that children are naive about tactics in advertising and have not learned that advertisements do not always tell the truth. Children are not persuaded by facts and statistics because they cannot comprehend them. Thus, advertisers use pathos and act on children’s emotions by including toys in their kids meals in order to advocate their products. As I previously mentioned, I recently saw a McDonald’s advertisement whose centre was the Minion toys placed in their Happy Meals. The reason being, that the advertisers want to get children excited and eager to buy a Happy Meal so that they could get a toy along with it. As Alexandra Sifferlin points out in her article “Forget the Food: Fast Food Ads Aimed at Kids Feature Lots of Giveaways,” published in Time on August 29th in 2013, “Between 2009 and 2010, when the scientists conducted their analysis, nearly all of the fast food ads –99%–that were aired nationally on children’s TV channels such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, were from McDonald’s and Burger King, and 70% of them included toy

That is why advertisers promote their products by misleading children with distractions of toys. In the advertisement I spoke about earlier where Minion toys were being used to catch children’s attention, food was discussed for less than half of the time it took for the advertisement to play. It is not just unethical to advertise to children without them being aware of the truth in the product being advertised, but in the case of food, it is harmful because they are unaware that what they are eating is not beneficial to their health. That is why companies need to change the way they are advertising to children. In her article, “New Federal Guidelines Regulate Junk Food Ads for Kids,” published in 2011, Marion Nestle points out how “The food industry has consistently opposed giving the FTC more authority over marketing of foods and supplements.” The food industry will continue to oppose any regulations trying to be placed on food marketing, which is why food companies need to take it upon themselves to regulate the advertisements aimed at children. In his article “FTC Shines Light On Food Ads, Kids,” published in The Wall Street Journal September 19 of 2012, Anton Troianovski states that “Bill Dietz, who retired in June as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's head of