Abstract
ABSTRACT In our society, children become avid consumers long before they learn the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. As children's roles as consumers have increased, so have concerns over children's abilities to evaluate advertising and promotion for these products and their abilities to make informed judgments as consumers. The importance of the child market is evidenced by the facts that children are active purchasers -or purchase lnfluencers- of many products, and their numbers are large and growing. Furthermore, they learn their basic consumption patterns attitudes toward promotional efforts at this stage in their lives. An important reason for marketers to focus attention on research into children's responses to promotion is the mounting attack on advertising directed toward children. Because of the special status enjoyed by children in society, advertising toward them has become an emotional issue. Commercials typically contain both product specific, information and background features such as pleasant music, humor, attractive people and colors. Do features like humor, sex, color, and music in a commercial merely increase our attention to product information in a message or can they directly influence our attitudes? The results of experiments suggest that hearing liked or disliked music, seeing liked or disliked characters while being exposed to a product can directly affect our and especially children's product preferences. It is obvious that advertising does shape consumer behavior. And one of its fundemental purposes, notably when a product comes to market, is to create wants and desires. The issue of effects of television advertising on children is not new. It has a history dating at least from the early 1960s, when broadcasters first adopted guidelines for toy advertising to children. Since then, the issue has taken many forms, but it seems to be based upon four fundamental concerns: a. Children are exposed to advertising for products or categories of products-such as drugs and heavily sugared foods that may be hazardous if misused. b. Any advertising directed at children is in fact `bad` because it exploits their vulnerability. c. Specific tecniques used in television advertising may be deceptive or misleading to children, who lack the skills to evaluate them properly. d. Long-term, cumulative exposure to television advertising may have adverse consequences on the development of children's values, attitudes and behavior.for these reasons advertising ethics has a great importance. Advertising ethics affects the practise our lives and especially children's lives, and also the practise of business in subtle and prominent ways. The major participants in the debate over televised advertising to children can be categorized into three groups which are involved in policymaking on children's advertising. The positions and actions taken by these three groups to a large degree define the context in which sspecific issues are raised resolved, as well as the contribution to be made by emprical research. These groups are government, industry and consumer - interest organizations. The public has remained relatively informed and unorganized in expressing its concern regarding the uses and abuses of television advertising for children. Some organizations, such as the Consumer Umon, provide the public with objective evaluations of advertised products; and several advocasy groups have concentrated specifically on the issues of children's television advertising- most notably ACT, in USA. Relations between industry, government and the consumer- interest groups have often been contentious. Consumer- interest groups charge that industry efforts toward self-regulation are more concerned with public relations than with the actual prevention of harm. Consumer protection will continue to dominate the regulatory scene in the 1990s because during recessionary it becomes even more important that consumers be properly informed in order to receive value for their money. Still, old and new values will be equally significant in determining advertising's regulatory environment. Many reactions are possible and indicated: Greater self-dicipline on the part of advertisers, enhanced self-regulation by the advertising industry at the national and supranational level (e. g.,though the International Chamber of Commerce) ;more effectively lobbying in the context of the deregulation movement; co-operation with representative consumer associations; and revised marketing and advertising policies (e.g., against pointless product differantiation and for more informative competitive ads.)
