Should Companies Be Allowed To Advertise To Children?

For several decades, there has been a debate over whether companies and markets should be allowed to target children, with several claims being made that it is an example of sanctioned brainwashing in children. I will not refute these claims; however, I do believe that these tactics have their advantages. I believe that in our youth, our minds are more susceptible to being molded, and that society plays as much of a role in this task as our guardians do. Children often reject much of the stimulus they receive from school because it is too rigid; however, advertising is one way that society is able direct children without making the child feel like it is being controlled. Companies should advertise to children because children are more susceptible to marketing schemes, children have a no risk, yet high reward incentive to spend money, and finally, it is important for companies to be aware of the desires of their prospective adult consumer audiences. Despite the seemingly harmful effects, advertising to children is necessary in maintaining the status quo and stimulating the economy. Children are extremely

If advertisers were to ignore children as consumers, not only would the market be out of touch with its future adult audience but the subsequent generations would be out of touch with the latest products on the market. This mismatch would be highly detrimental to the markets. As adults, they harder to convince of the necessity of products, so it is vital that companies trigger this product dependency during the child’s youth or the market will likely collapse. Hughes argues that “children as ‘tomorrow’s consumers…represent a huge market today’ and therefore are ‘fair game’ (Bakan). It would simply be foolish for companies to ignore children, when they will eventually be the main consumers on the