Marketing To Children DB Response

 Reply to the attached 2 discussion posts regarding the culture of consumer behavior in marketing. Must be 350+ words each with 2 scholarly journals  less than 5 years old, and a bible verse.

MUST HAVE DATABASE ACCESS

1. Tionna

 

Promoting Responsible and Accurate Children Advertising 

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) is the nation’s first Safe Harbor Program under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The program assists organizations with conforming to laws and rules that shield youngsters from misleading or improper promoting and guarantee that, in an online climate, kids’ information is gathered and taken care of dependably. When promoting or information assortment rehearses are misdirecting, wrong, or conflicting with laws and rules, CARU looks for change through the intentional collaboration of organizations and where important, requirement activity.

            CARU guarantees kid-provoking promotions are honest, exact, and proper. In November 1974, CARU berated Mego International, the creator of Batman and Robin themed toys, for a TV plug that took steps to misdirect kids about the fiercely famous toys (Bean, 2017). CARU stated that the commercial showed props that children might believe were part of the initial purchase, disclosing that the “Batlight” needed batteries to operate. Video techniques left a false impression of the toy’s capabilities, and the ad implied that the “Batcomputer” actually made computed remarks. This led to CARU’s statement, “there was confusion as to whether or not the action figures contained talking mechanisms.” (They did not.) With that choice, CARU increased present expectations for promoting to children and exhibited to guardians, teachers, controllers, and sponsors that new and stricter principles would now apply. The advancement of a promoting industry association accused explicitly of assessing publicizing coordinated to children was met with “impressive incredulity,” as indicated by a 1984 article distributed in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing (Armstrong, 1984).”Many experts expected that the Children’s Unit would be just a symbolic exertion utilized by the business to endure the hardship of current analysis and that it was not planned as a successful component for improving kids’ advertising (Armstrong, 1984).

            In spite of the doubters and skeptics, CARU has for over 40 years gave strong direction to children promoters and served to emphasize through its brand standards and rules — the moral consideration required when publicizing to kids (Bean, 2017). CARU’s center standards highlight that kids’ sponsors have uncommon obligations, and that promoting should not be charming, uncalled for, or wrong, and that publicist’s must:

·     Avoid raising unrealistic expectations about product performance

·     Refrain from advertising to children’s products that aren’t appropriate for them

·     Be able to substantiate objective advertising claims

·     Avoid social stereotyping and appeals to prejudice

·     Incorporate minority and other groups in advertisements

·     Contribute to the parent-child relationship in a constructive manner

            CARU rules aren’t stagnant, and they are more than publicly favored. The rules were refreshed in 1996 to address worries about online information assortment rehearses and in 2006 to address obscuring among publicizing and publication content, the act of “advergaming,” and worries about food promoting to kids. They were reconsidered again in 2014 to reflect changes made by the Federal Trade Commission to online information assortment rules. Most U.S. sponsors comprehend their duty to manage their most youthful crowd and embrace the CARU standards. Simultaneously, advertising to youngsters has detonated across advanced stages, setting out new open doors, and raising new issues.

            The challenge for CARU and kids’ advertisers is to guarantee that the very restricted requirements that apply to conventional kids’ publicizing can be adjusted to the advanced digital world. This is an energizing time of development and advancement. Expanding on the achievement of the previous 40 years, CARU invites new freedoms to advance elevated requirements for promoting advertisements directed to children.

            1 Thessalonians 3:13, “so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.”

 

 

Armstrong, Gary M. (1984). An evaluation of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 3(1), 38-55.

Bean, L. (2017, June 25). Promoting Responsible Advertising to Kids. BBBTrusted. https://www.bbbtrusted.org/bbb/2017/06/promoting-responsible-advertising-kids/

2. Cameron

Advertising to children is such an important issue, especially when discussing ethics because, oftentimes, children are not aware of the tactics and strategies being used to target them and how manipulative they might be (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2017). Adults are typically capable of deciphering the tactics used to gain their interest in advertising executions. When watching an ad on tv that shows sad puppies, they can tell that there is an emotional pull in the marketing message and that generally, people love animals, so animals are being used to exploit our emotions. However, children don’t yet have the emotional intelligence to decipher messages in this way and decided whether or not they want to be swayed by the message they are being presented as adults do.

Many people see marketing to children as a gold-mine opportunity because connecting with young consumers early on can result in a loyal consumer throughout the course of their life. Not only is this idea problematic, but businesses have also opted for farming children’s information and selling it to other companies. This idea has resulted in many predatory practices regarding advertising to children. In 2019, CARU, the Children’s Advertising Review Unit, was responsible for the social media app Tik Tok being fined over 5 million dollars for collecting the personal data of children without their parents’ consent. CARU introduced this issue to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the organization was able to fine them for using the information to send children targeted ads. This issue set the precedent for the FTC to also go after Google and subsequently YouTube for using the same predatory practices which are in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) (CARU, 2019).

To circumvent that, companies have gotten extremely creative in their approach of advertising to children. Companies have now sought to sponsor child YouTubers. Sponsoring YouTubers is not a new practice by any means, but as YouTube cracks down on their COPPA responsibilities it has become harder for advertisers to reach children. A great way to get around that is by using children instead. Companies will send gifts to children in hopes of their product being included in an unboxing video or vlog (Nelson, 2019). This is currently being deemed as acceptable because the parents of the child are typically the individuals running the account and interacting with the business requesting to work with their platform. While they aren’t technically breaking any rules because they received the consent of the parents, it seems like a rather extensive process to get around the rules and regulations provided to ethically advertise to children. Additionally, there has been increasing concern about whether the parents of these child YouTube stars are acting in the best interests of their children or simply participating in this exchange solely for a substantial amount of money. Now, not only is there a concern of whether advertisers are acting ethically, as a society we have to question whether these parents are acting ethically as well.

Scripture dictates “show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity” (English Standard Bible, 2001, Titus 2:7). Marketers should be concerned with integrity in regard to all of their work and everyone it involves, but especially children because they are not aware of their tactics. While we can choose whether or not we want to internalize a message or receive it at all, children do not have the purview let alone the option. A marketer that champions integrity would also not look for ways around the issue to achieve their goals of advertising to children because you cannot achieve dignity or integrity through deceit.

 
 

References

CARU. (2019, September). Google agrees to a record fine to SETTLE COPPA investigation over YouTube. https://carunews.blogspot.com/2019/09/google-agrees-to-record-fine-to-settle.html.

English Standard Bible. (2001).

Nelson, M. R. (2018). Research on children and advertising then and now: challenges and opportunities for future research. Journal of Advertising, 47(4), 301-308.

Van Reijmersdal, E. A., Rozendaal, E., Smink, N., Van Noort, G., & Buijzen, M. (2017). Processes and effects of targeted online advertising among children. International Journal of Advertising, 36(3), 396-414.