One Step Away from Banning Advertising Targeted at Children

Ban the advertising of products aimed at children under 11 years old! This is the clear, unequivocal appeal from British parent associations and other organizations directed at bodies responsible for market advertising control (including the Advertising Standards Authority), requesting advertisers to hypersexualize children and work on a system to protect the youngest from inappropriate advertising on the internet.

Although practice shows that accepting these appeals is complicated, especially in the virtual world, increasing pressures indicate that advertising products aimed at the youngest will have to change fundamentally, otherwise more European countries will follow Sweden’s example and literally ban advertisements for those under 11 years old (or under 12 years in that country). But is there a way for advertising to children to become ethical, and is that phrase itself contradictory? Should advertisers promote values rather than products? What do they even gain from communicating with the little ones? To these and many other questions, the authors of the British Marketing Week attempted to respond at the beginning of May, witnessing the transformation of advertising for children. Or at least an attempt for it to change.

Sports and Recreation As stated by the relevant minister Edward Timpson for their publication, a complete ban on advertising to those under 11 years old should be avoided, but it is necessary to insist on better self-regulation and for advertisers to take greater responsibility towards their youngest consumers. Thus, control is left to the market rather than the state. Although this response does not satisfy parents, their resistance is growing louder and stronger each year, and in the end, the most persistent, in this case, may win. However, some brands manage to stay out of the reach of parental criticism due to their communication methods, confirming that advertising messages can be conveyed to children ethically and beneficially. Nike is, in this sense, one of the exemplary advertisers. Indeed, five years ago, it began more intense communication aimed at encouraging the youngest to engage in sports activities. Given that its research showed that fewer and fewer ‘tweens’ and teenagers, especially of the female gender, participate, it decided to launch the ‘Here I Am’ campaign, which, among other things, includes advertising in schools to encourage them to take action. As reported by Marketing Week, cynics will say that Nike does not promote sports but rather the brand or engaging in sports in its shoes, tracksuits, and similar gear, but nonetheless, the campaign has yielded good results. After raising students’ awareness of the importance of recreation, it launched the Nike Training Club School. Company representatives stated that this initiative increased the number of young recreationalists, with as much as 60 percent being girls.

Education with Mascots The candy brand Chewits also promotes sports – it has designed Chewits Sports courses that children aged five to eleven have attended 800,000 times over the past five years. McDonald’s (yes, even McDonald’s) also promotes a healthy lifestyle. They claim to have made changes to their menus. The popular Happy Meal, which contains higher amounts of fat and sugar, is not advertised in the British market (except at the point of sale) and reportedly spends 45 percent of its total media budget on the ‘Smart Eat’ project, which educates the youngest and their parents about the importance of a varied and healthy diet. This healthy concept is also advertised by characters from popular cartoons like ‘Shrek’, with Princess Fiona appearing on the packaging of Fruit Bags (fruit salad), and Donkey on carrot sticks. The combination of recreation and popular characters has also succeeded for the Clarks brand, which last year created a dance competition in collaboration with star Kimberly Wyatt called ‘Step it Up’. The children targeted by the project rewarded the brand with a 17 percent higher ‘cool’ moment, prompting the company to launch ‘Step It Up 2’ this year with the dance group Diversity.

The Digital Challenge But are recreation and education the only cards advertisers have without angering parents? Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts stated to Marketing Week that all other forms of advertising are unacceptable, especially in schools, which should be spaces free of any marketing messages, a sort of refuge. The biggest problem, she says, is that schools are more concerned with the commercial side of the story than with caring for children; they do not ask what this can do to children but how it will fill their budgets. Thus, parents will first try to eliminate advertising from school hallways and then address the rest of the media ether. One successful example of pressure on traditional media is the case from 2006 when a ban on advertising unhealthy food products (high in sugar, fat, and salt) during children’s programming was introduced. As a result, children saw 37 percent fewer ads from those manufacturers. After the bodies responsible for the advertising market, in partnership with parents, encouraged advertisers to take some steps, the case of the digital world remains to be resolved, which is currently the biggest challenge.

Be Loud Due to the nature of that media, it is harder to control, but not impossible. The ASA, for example, shut down Kellogg’s website that advertised children’s cereals because the brand made many false claims regarding the benefits of consuming such products. The brand Weetabix was also banned for its appeals that offend children who do not eat its cereals. In this sense, advertisers are advised to use the digital world as a means to connect their brand with consumers, rather than necessarily selling products. This includes games, projects in collaboration with children, entertainment, and similar activities that do not explicitly tell children: ‘Buy me!’, but provide them with added value. If the increasing involvement of parents in marketing strategy is any indication, it can be expected that in the medium term, advertising aimed at children will indeed undergo a transformation in favor of the youngest. There are mechanisms; it is just important for parents to continue to be loud enough.