The Effects of Advertising on Children

It is a well known fact that mass media, especially television and the Internet, have an influence on children's development, on their behaviour and cognitive abilities, as well as on their preferences and opinions about the world. Advertisers, having recognised that influence, start to congest the media space with numerous commercials for toys, candies and other products aimed at children on a daily basis. To be specific, advertising to children is the act of creating advertisements or marketing campaigns in order to promote a product or a service to children. The entire topic of advertising to children is often the subject of debate because it is believed by some that advertisements have a substantial impact on children. Of course, children are not only influenced by advertisements aimed at their age group, they are also influenced by every other ad or commercial they come across on television or on billboards. According to the GfK Centre for Market Research, 84% of children watch television commercials and 58% of children pay attention to billboards. That means that children, watching and adopting advertising messages all around them, are starting to influence their parents' shopping decisions more and more (''Commercials and their Influence on Children'', 2007). However, some questions must be asked: do children comprehend the purpose and the persuasive nature of advertising, do they believe everything they see on advertisements and commercials and what exactly is the role of the parent in the advertising literacy of their child