Introduction
Advertisers target the youth market more and more these days. The thirteen to fifteen age brackets are perhaps the most coveted group for marketers today. The main industries focusing on this age group are tobacco, alcohol, drug, food and cloth industries. The advertisements are presented through important means of media such as television, movies, print media and internet. This paper presents the focus of such industries on the children who are aged between thirteen to fifteen years.
Purpose of the Paper
The purpose of the paper is to determine the cause of the increased focus of the advertisers on the younger brackets during the last hundred years and to assess what are the industries that pay more attention to the children between thirteen to fifteen years of age.
Advertisements and Younger Age Brackets
Today, younger age brackets are the attraction of advertisements and various companies spend a lot of money for the advertisements through television, movies, print media and internet. The companies producing tobacco, alcohol, drug, and food are the main advertisers focusing on younger age children. “Advertising is a pervasive influence on children and adolescents. Young people view more than 40 000 ads per year on television alone and increasingly are being exposed to advertising on the Internet, in magazines, and in schools.” (Pediatrics, 2006, para.1).
The main reason for attracting the younger age brackets is their curiosity. The youth like to experience what they see in the television, magazines and other media. So, the companies can exploit the curious nature of the younger people. This is the main agenda of advertisers.
Movies can create an immense influence on the teenagers and the children imitate what ever they see in the movies. It is often found that the child who watches aggressive movies has aggressive nature towards their friends and parents. Vicious films, ads and other games highly influence the children. “A 2000 FTC investigation found that violent movies, music, and video games have been intentionally marketed to children and adolescents.” (Pediatrics, 2006, para.5).
Food Ads and Younger Brackets
Food is the main attraction for children. They spend enormous money for getting foods in different tastes. Therefore, food industry has a special focus on younger brackets irrespective of girl and boy. The food industry is highly intended to chase the youth as they are the future customers of the industry. Majority of the young generation are highly brand conscious. In view of this, the food industries are ready to spend any amount for the advertisements.
In recent years, the food and beverage industry in the US has viewed children and adolescents as a major market force. As a result, children and adolescents are now the target of intense and specialized food marketing and advertising efforts. Food marketers are interested in youth as consumers because of their spending power, their purchasing influence, and as future adult consumers. Multiple techniques and channels are used to reach youth, beginning when they are toddlers, to foster brand-building and influence food product purchase behavior. (Story & French, 2004, para.1).
Alcohol Ads and Younger Brackets
Majority of the alcohol consumers are adults and they begin to consume the alcohol from their school time onwards. Alcohol has become an inevitable part of all social gathering, parties or celebration. Even tough the younger brackets are legally banned from taking alcohol; they furtively get induced into the activity. Also, there is an inner drive for the younger generation to do what is prohibited to them. More ads of alcohol are found in the magazines intended for the youth. “Young people see 45% more beer ads and 27% more ads for hard liquor in teen magazines than adults do in their magazines.” (Pediatrics, 2006, para.6). It shows that, printed magazine is one of the influencing means of pervading the ads on alcohol.
Tobacco Ads and the Youth
Most of the younger generation use tobacco in the schools. The main reason for smoking is the advertisement. So, when their peer group gets together, they start to taste what they have observed in the elders and media. Studies have shown the relationship between the tobacco ads and development of smoking habit among the younger children. “Two unique and large longitudinal studies have found that approximately one third of all adolescent smoking can be attributed to tobacco advertising and promotions.” (Children, adolescents, and advertising, 2006, p.2).
Textile Ads and the Younger Generation
They like to be stylish in the life, dressing code, behavior etc. When they a trendy attire in the market they wish to possess it. The textile industry makes use of this nature of the children. They choose the brand ambassadors who could attract the young generation. The children like to put on what their stars wear. This is the marketing strategy used by the cloth industries.
Role of the Website in the Promotion of the Advertisements
There are so many commercial websites promoting drugs, alcohol, tobacco etc. These websites have various sites for chatting and games. If there are games in the site, the children will get interested and more often they will be searching the site. It is very explicable in the following sentence.
More than 100 commercial Web sites promote alcohol products.23 The content of these sites varies widely, from little more than basic brand information to chat rooms, “virtual bars,” drink recipes, games, contests, and merchandise catalogues. Many of these sites use slick promotional techniques to target young people. (Pediatrics, 2006, para.7).
Entertainment industries also aim at the children since they like movies, games, cartoons etc. There are so many channels and videos intended only for the children. “Entertainment industries continue to market some R-rated movies, M-rated video games, and explicit-content recordings on television shows and Web sites with substantial teen audiences.” (FTC issues report on marketing violence entertainment to children, 2007, para.1).
Increased Amount for the Ads in View of Younger Brackets
The message in the ads of alcohol, drugs, tobacco etc shows that it is not healthy for the teenagers. But, the implicit and hidden idea behind the ad is the massive consumption of drugs by the teenagers. From these advertisements, the school children who are in between thirteen and fifteen years of age are tempted and they use it on the sly. The drug industry spends a lot of money for the advertisement and the following sentence unravels it.
Just Say No as a message to teenagers about drugs seems doomed to failure given that $11 billion/year is spent on cigarette advertising, $5.7 billion/year is spent on alcohol advertising, and nearly $4 billion/year is spent on prescription drug advertising (Pediatrics, 2006, para.12).
Conclusion
The main attraction of the advertisers is on younger brackets. This paper unravels the statistics of spending for the advertisement by various industries. It shows that industries such as tobacco, alcohol, drug and food are more focused on the youth. They are tempted to consume drugs, tobacco and alcohol due to the attractive advertisements.
Reference List
Children, adolescents, and advertising. (2006). American Academy of Pediatrics, 118(6). Web.
FTC issues report on marketing violence entertainment to children. (2007). Federal Trade Commission.
Pediatrics. (2006). American Academy of Pediatrics. Web.
Story, M., & French, S. (2004). Food advertising and marketing directed at children and adolescents in the US. UK Pubmed Central. Web.