What is “symbolic addiction” in children’s advertising?

What is “symbolic addiction” in children’s advertising?

Consuming Kids – Media Education Foundation Documentary

Questions Due Thursday 4/09/2020 – emailed to me by the end of virtual class on 4/09

1. At the time this documentary was released, how much money per year did the advertising industry make from advertising to children?
2. Why do they market to/target children?
3. Where do children get their money?
4. How do advertisers/markets mainly target kids?
5. What are touchstones, and how do advertisers use them in ads targeting kids?
6. As of 1980, what was the primary tool marketing executives used for targeting kids?
7. Relate this phenomenon to Leonard’s discussion of planning and perceived obsolescence?
8. What is “product placement” and why is it important in children’s advertising?
9. What is the “nag factor”? How do advertisers capitalize on that phenomenon?
10. How many ads of all kinds are kids potentially exposed to on a daily basis?
11. How are kids influenced by advertisers to get parents to buy products for them?
12. How do the makers of the documentary explain that kids are multi-tasking with media?
13. What is the ultimate goal of targeting kids in ads? (Beyond getting kids to buy the products in the ads.)
14. In 1980 President Reagan “deregulated” American manufacturing industries. How did that affect adverting and marketing laws concerning children? How does that relate to Leonard’s explanation of “planned” and “perceived” obsolescence?
15. How do advertisers use “touchstones” in children’s ads? How does that tap into their emotions and them wanting the products being marketed to them?
16. What is “product placement” in children’s ads and how does it work on them? Give an example.
17. How do marketers/advertisers sell their products in video games?
18. What do the documentary narrators claim about “ads as entertainment” and “entertainment as ads”?
19. How do websites operate to get kids to buy products? How do they get kids to give up their personal information?
20. How do marketers/advertisers use the knowledge educators and/or psychologists have gathered about kids to market to them? What do educators/psychologists claim about this practice?
21. What are “focus groups” and how to they “work” on kids?
22. What is the GIA and how does it work?
23. What is neuro-marketing?
24. How to corporations justify marketing to kids? What is their end-goal for children?
25. What is “symbolic addiction” in children’s advertising?
26. One educator claimed that advertisers are selling more to children than products—that they are selling values to children in order to make them life-long consumers—how does this relate to the quote used in Shames’ article “The More Factor”?
27. Comment on the educator’s remark that the affect of marketing to kids is that they become shallow, develop low self-esteem, are self-indulgent, need instant gratification, and are materialistic, and mostly, that they are becoming “Me, Me Now, Me and These Things”. How do “simple” ads do this to kids?
28. Comment on the fact that since the 1980’s kids claim they want to be rich and have things rather than anything else. Is this a result of commercialization changing kids’ psyches? Explain.
29. What do the narrators mean by “selling down to young kids”?
30. What are 10-year olds being shown in ads that were previously marketed to 17-year olds? What values are they selling, especially to young girls?
31. What are “tweens”? Why are they an important focus group for advertisers?
32. The narrators suggest that ads are teaching young girls to be sexy. Relate that to Kilbourne’s claims.
33. How were Barbie dolls different than the current Bratz dolls? What are the differing values being sold?
34. What adult messages do boys get from ads? Relate these to Katz.
35. What did the narrators claim about the counter-program “Baby Einstein”?
36. How do these programs and others “trick” the brains of children? What is the long-term effect on children’s brains? Relate this to Carr.
37. What does the American Academy of Pediatrics claim about children between the ages of 6 and 8 and those of 9 and 12?
38. Why do child experts claim that “creative play” is vital in child development? What is one of the important emotions it helps children develop?
39. How does “creative play” help with critical thinking? What does “planned play” or that based on media characters take away from children?
40. What excuse do advertisers use to justify what they do? How/why do they get away with it?

FYW 100P – Consuming Kids Documentary