“As the media landscape children face has diversified, the lines between advertising and entertainment have become increasingly blurred.”. The blur between entertainment and advertising is something that children can not cognitively discern, this lack of understanding between entertainment and advertising has made children a target for advertising as they aren’t conscious of the ways it affects them.
Children’s adverts often feature zany characters and lots of colours, sonically they will often include catchy songs usually sang by a group of children, to have a group of children singing the song leaves the child at home watching the advert feeling left out without the product, creating the need for the product to be an urgent one.
The techniques used in advertising to adults are much more effective on children as they cannot understand the differences between adverts and entertainment, they also cannot understand the motives behind the adverts being played like an adult can. To take advantage of the lack of understanding and life experience children have in order to sell them products is something I find abhorrent and is part of the inspiration for the creative project for this work. People naturally feel protective of children and to highlight this manipulation of them that occurs everyday is something I think will be effective in informing opinion on the ethics of advertising to children and advertising in general.
Moore, E.S., 2004. Children and the changing world of advertising. Journal of business Ethics, 52, pp.161-167.