Deceptive Advertising = Brainwashing
Advertisers try to buy a piece of young kid’s minds. Even babies. They see babies as a source of profit. When kids are as young as 6 months, advertisers try to get them to recognize their brand names and logos so that they will buy from that brand all their lives. They call this a “cradle to grave” relationship. Advertisers even get psychologists to teach them about what goes on inside a child’s mind. They use this information to help their companies create effective advertisements directed toward children. Over 17 billion dollars were spent last year on advertising. Advertisers have stooped to using unethical means to brainwash young children into buying their brand.
Advertisers use a technique called building brand name loyalty to put their brand name and logo in front of really young kids. The advertisers want children as young as 6 months to relate to and recognize their brand name and logo. They try many different things to make that happen. One way that marketers have figured out to build brand name loyalty with young kids is through sponsored programs for preschoolers. For example, Ford finds preschools that need supplies and then donate supplies to those schools. It is a nice thing to do for those preschools, but there is a catch. On all of the supplies that are donated, there is a Ford logo. Not just one, but a logo on every page of a safety work booklet. This way, the kids are exposed to the Ford company, and they become familiar with the Ford logo. These kids are young enough that they don’t realize they are being advertised to, so it isn’t really fair.
Through a Skype interview with Susan Linn, a Harvard professor who is the director of the Campaign for a Commercial -Free Childhood, we learned about another way to build brand name loyalty. Brand Licensing. This is a tactic that advertisers use to get kids to associate a product with a certain feeling, like warmth and comfort. Disney is an example of a company who uses this advertising method a lot. For this technique, Disney advertises to the parents and encourages them to bring their young daughters home to rooms with Disney princesses covering the walls. The young children, or babies even, then associate Disney princesses with being cuddled by their parents and being comfortable and relaxed. Just as the companies want, this turns into a lasting relationship where the kids grow up thinking they need Disney Princesses to feel a certain way. All of these forms of advertising are part of an effort to stick a company’s name or logo into young children’s minds to make them relate to or associate with that brand. This is bad, especially with kids so young, because they can’t distinguish between advertisements and the real world.
Recently, psychologists have found a place in the advertising field. The psychologists give information to marketers about what children want socially and emotionally at certain ages, and the marketers use that information to target their advertisements at kids. For example, if kids of a certain age want to fit in, then the marketers might advertise their products as being cool and popular. Psychologists also tell companies such as McDonald’s what kids want, and then the company can incorporate that information into its products. McDonald’s incorporated Shrek items and foods into their “Happy Meals” because kids wanted to identify and associate with a familiar movie. A survey was done recently that shows that these tactics are working, and some kids have been so brainwashed by McDonald’s ads that they really think foods taste better in a McDonald’s wrapper. This survey took simple foods like carrots and gave each kid a carrot wrapped in a plain wrapper and one wrapped in a McDonald’s wrapper. Most of the kids really thought that the carrot in the McDonald’s wrapper tasted better. This whole method is extremely unethical because psychologists are supposed to help people with problems, not brainwash them into craving things from a certain brand or company. Using psychologists to market products to kids is sort of like cheating because the advertisers take advantage of the information they get, and can find ways to get into kids’ minds.
Advertisers have come up with a new method of advertising to teens called viral advertising, which is also a threat to teens’ privacy. Viral advertising is when companies track certain teens on the internet to see what kind of web sites they visit. They then send advertisements to the teens’ friends based on the content of the web sites visited by the teen. The friends are tricked into thinking that the ad was created by their friend, and is just an email, so the advertisers are advertising to them without their ever knowing it. Similar advertisements are also placed on teen sites such as My Space, where lots of people see them every day. Most of the time, the teens that are being tracked don’t know it, and they don’t know that they are being used to provide information on their friends. This type of advertising is an invasion of privacy, and tricking people into thinking an ad is from a friend seems unethical.
All of these forms have something in common. They are deceptive, and try to brainwash kids at an early age. The sole purpose of deceptive advertising is to convince young children to want a certain product or a certain brand. Sadly, there are more laws and regulations in the U.S. for advertising to adults rather than for advertising to kids. This needs to be changed because kids don’t know any better than to believe ads and think that they are the truth. Luckily, some people and organizations are trying to make this change happen. Take Susan Linn and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (Susan Linn is the co-founder of this organization). The CCFC is trying to raise awareness about deceptive advertising to children, and eventually end it. Hopefully, in the near future, young children will no longer be brainwashed into loving McDonalds.
