Children+and+Advertising,+Robert+Weir+Page+74+to+78

Robert Weir March 25, 2010

=
The portion of the book I decided to write about begins on page 74 and ends page 78, and has to deal with children and advertising. Nickelodeon has to main ways to advertise, and that is either a corporate commercial (which Nickelodeon receives a large portion of its revenue), and Nickelodeons own advertising, which was implemented to **gain brand loyalty** among children and their parents. The author feels there is mixed messages when it comes to children and advertising, because **kids might not have the cognitive ability to understand commercials**, thus they are easily influenced and heavily targeted by companies. ======

=
 Many children believe they have no say or power in society, however, they actually have the biggest spending power in the country and their main actions are consuming. **Nickelodeon tries to get kids to feel empowered, which in turn would get them to consume**; though they have spending power, they still have no say in social issues and are only seen as the almost perfect consumer. A problem does arise with advertising junk food to children, and since children have a hard time truly grasping the commercial, they are venerable to these advertisements which can **lead to the ever increase in childhood obesity.** ======

=
 When advertisements are run during commercial break, they are almost exclusively targeted to children. In one case Nickelodeon tries to get kids to buy their magazine, and by doing this, Nickelodeon in  trying to get kids to wake their parents up and buy the product on the spot. The advertisements themselves are almost always starring kids with little to no parent authority, and everything in the commercial is simulated to **resemble a kind of childhood utopia in which kids rule** and can do what ever they want. ======

=
 These commercial often rely on the whole “respect for kids” notion, and help them to believe that they can break away from the shackles of parent’s authority and develop their own confidence. The problem a lot of advertisers have and as does Nickelodeon, is the problem of over playing an advertisement to a cynical child/teen audience. The key, advertisers figured out in selling the product was to be skeptical to the product being sold, which in turns makes kids feel it is cool to buy and own that certain product. ======

I  wish you had looked at what other students had done before submitting this because your work duplicates the work of another student. You have done a good job identifying key ideas. Watch typos that interfere with readability. I'm pleased that you identify Nick as creating a kind of childhood utopia-- and this makes me wonder if watching the show might lead kids to be a little dissatisfied with their life. I wonder about the consequences of this.

GRADE: B+