Why advertisements directed to kids can be morally unethical

Advertising and marketing help grow awareness and stimulate the sale of products and services to customers, both grown-ups and children. Although marketers and advertisers have targeted children for influencing their sales, recent trends, quantifiably two, have increased their interest in children consumers exponentially.

Children of today seemingly have more power to influence their parents to make purchases than of the previous generations. This is the first trend that advertisers and marketers have started noticing. Second, the extensive surge in the number of television channels has led to the number of audiences for each channel to diminish. With that in mind, digital interactive technologies have opened new avenues to advertise to children. This has created a rapidly growing media aimed at just children and their products.

Paid advertising to children mainly involves television spots that feature food and toy products. Contemporary marketing approaches have led to advertising on the internet. They have also made way for stealth marketing techniques. These techniques involve embedding products in the content of video games and films. These techniques often make children of the youngest ages vulnerable as they lack cognitive skills to understand the intents of persuasion that television and online commercials come with.

Critics of advertising to children assert that it makes way for several ills, from obesity in childhood to other precocious concerns. Some brands in recent years have launched campaigns to directly market to kids. This can have serious repercussions and should be well monitored by government agencies as there is essentially no ethical, social, or moral justification for marketing to children.