How does food advertising influence the behavior of children?

Why are children considered to be susceptible consumers?

Introduction
What my question is
What theory I am going to use Volkensburg and Cantor, Piagets
If it unethical for marketers to advertise to children
Why children are susceptible consumers
if children understand the difference between advertisements and
programme
Concept of advertising literacy
Do they think for themselves
Do children understand whats being said

First paragraph Use Volkensburg and Cantor theory

Can be influenced in every stage of their life cycle
Infants and toddlers 0-2 feeling wants and preferences
watching moving objects with primary colours and sharp contrasts
4-5 interest in programes
Can sit in the trolly and observe the brightly coloured products 8
months take products from the shelves and ask their parents to
buy the products, cant communicate
Enjoy listening to music, respond to songs, rhymes and musics
lyrics not understood, turn their head in the direction of the source
of music
18 months recognise familiar objects and face start to make
connects between advertising and products in the store when they
are with their parents, may only want it because of the vibrants
colours that stand out and the music, not the product itself
40% of the parents of 2 year olds said that their child had
recognised an advertised product in the store. (valkenburg J. Cantor
2001)

Preschoolers (age 2-5) nagging and negotiating, still with the

parents, know what they like and dislike and what they want and
dont want

Fantasy from reality, characters on media are real, impact at this

stage, commercials are true, dont know the difference between
advertising and programmes, they are both.

At this age prefer familiar contexts and visuals, like to repeat

programs. Advertising being seen more than once, stay in their
 memory and likely to notice the product in the shop. Gonna show
prefernces for specific brands of products.

Not gonna go for quality more likely to go for the colours, shapes,
and size of the product that attracts, looks at one feature to attract
them

This stage gonna nag, cry, scream to force/persurade their parents

to buy the product, However this age they can easily be distracted
by parents to make sure they dont see the product, can
communicate with the parents.

consumerbehavioristhattheycannotkeeptheirmindsofftempting
productsforlong(Metcalfe&Mischel,1999)sowhenfinishedthey
willforgetandmoveontosomethingthatcatchestheireye.

Age 5-8, adventure and the first purchase

Not got the understanding of reality and fantasy just yet, attention
span increases can watch a full advert, has to grab their attention
first with colours etc.

Fantasy becomes more social, so this can influence the child to have
a product because their friends have it.

For more fast paced entertainment, understand more information,

responds to verbally orientated information, forms of humour

Make independent purchases with the parent permission and

without their parents, target market has changed not linking then
together just targeting the child alone.

Age 8-12

Have their own opinions, eye for detail and looks for quality instead
of the appearance, evaluate and compare products, brands and
information. More realistic, entertainments and commercials that
have realism in them, real life hero, celebrity endorsements

Observe all aspects of the product

Children start to recognise emotion, criticize and dislike poor acting

in commericals and programms

Care about the thoughts, opinions, judgements of their friends,

which can influence when buying a product
 9-10 interest in products designed for adults, lost interest in toys,
peer influences is important here, needs to be trendy, popular,
consumer socialising forces need to be included in advertising at
this point.

Loyalty to brands, visiting different stores and being independent,

value what they buying looking into more detail, entertaining
advertisements is seen as negative.

Overall children are seen as important as they are a future

market, develop brand loyalty at an early age, Different
stages of the childs life are influenced in adverts in
different way from 0-8 its all about colours, entertainment,
music and this is where they get the idea into their head, in
order to persuade to the parents to buy the product for
them. However, when they are 8-12 they dont get
influenced by advertising as much as they are influenced by
friends, unless there is celebrity endorsement that are
inspired to, to influence them to purchase the product.

Second Paragraph
Children spend 14.6 hours on average per week watching TV (Ofcom,
2014) this means that children do spend a lot of time watching TV,
therefore must be exposed to 75 advertisements in a day. When it comes
to stages they are believing the advertisments 2-7 as being confused on
whats reality and fantasy, but after that they start to not believe and start
to have their own judgements and dislikes about the products.
- Based on a study done by Harris, Bargh and bronwell they found
that children consumed 45% more when exposed to food advertised
they in fact eat more.
- However this can have some negative impact and this encourages
children to eat unhealthy food as 57.5% of UK food advertising was
for unhealthy food(Russel, 2013) This then leads to overweight and
obesity and this can be shown that food is unethical in a way as its
getting them into a habit of eating unhealthy food. Especially as
they are getting inspired by the characters. Overweight cartoon
characters make children eat more (Campbell et al.2015) they still
dont know whats right and wrong
- On the other hand, it could have a positive impact on the child, a
healthy lifestyle has been promoted for the last few years and if
children are constantly exposed to this they might take it on board
and can start having a balanced diet a young age.
Furthermore, there has been regulations been put into place to ensure
child protection:
In 2007 there has been a ban on all HFSS food broadcast and non-
broadcast advertising around programming aimed at appealing to children
aged up 15 years old. From 2011, the ban extended to include websites
and online advertising. From 2016 an increase in voluntary restrictions (EU
Pledge) by some food and drink companies when targeting children under
12(parsons 2014). This shows that there is an awareness of advertising to
children and the consequences that this causes.

Third Paragraph
- Looking at Piagets theory to see if cognitive development are to see
if children are considered to be susceptible consumers and found
out that children have not fully developed cognitively.
- In the sensorimotor stage infants and toddlers learns knowledge
through sensory experiences.
- Knowledge of the world is limited because it is based on physical
interactions/experiences, so when it comes to advertising this is
difficult to understand as they dont get physical experience of the
advert, this is only done when they have the food in front of them,
so they are more likely to go for familiar food that they already know
as they know the experience, in terms of food they dont like trying
anything different. The physical development allows the child to
begin developing new intellectual abilities. They are sustepiable
consumers when they start to recognise logos and request specific
brands.
- In the pre-operational stage- kids learn through pretend play but still
struggle with logic and taking the point of view from other people,
for example their parents.
- They learn things more symbolically. Language develops and
memory and imagination develops. Thinking is based on intuition
and not completely logical, they are sustepiable consumers at this
point as they have significant influence over family purchases, as
they are easy to persuade as to attract children is to give them
bright colours and appealing brand packing, regarding the cost or
quality they are gonna be attracted to the product and by having
the communication to nag and encourage the parents to buy, they
normally give in. This allows marketing for children to be easy.
When having the product and being familiar and appealing to the
product everytime they go past the food in the shop they are going
to remember why they liked it and want it again. Maybe taking an
advantage? Easily persuaded
- In the concrete operational stage think more logically, but thinking
can be rigid. Care what other people might think, thoughts are
unique to them and not share the same thoughts and feelings. They
are aware of external events and this shows what they like and
dislike about the product and
- in formal operational stage- increase the logic, the ability to use
reasoning and understanding of abstract ideas, multiple potential
solutions to problems and think externally, this point they make
susteptiable consumers as at this point they can communicate their
thoughts and opinions about the product to their friends, which
creates advertising from word of mouth and this allows their friends
to persuade their parents to purchase the product, this allows the
 influence of others to persuade them as thoughts and opinions can
be used to give more detail about the product
- Children dont understand TV advertising until a certain age. They
do not know the difference between a program they are watching
and an advertisement as they do not know the difference between
reality and fantasy especially as they think everything is reality.

- Conclusion
- Overall food advertising heavily affects the behaviour of children
- As they become hungrier and eat more
- They also pressure their parents to make the purchase
- They are influenced in advertising at a certain age after it becomes
more important what they friends think, like and what they friends
have for example when their friends have tasted the product
- They make susceptible consumers as, they are an easy to market to
advertise as not much detail has to be provided in order to attract
them, so by just giving bright colors and big shapes and characters,
this can help with memory when purchasing and to attract child to
the product more.