ADVERTISERS TARGETING CHILDREN. Part I
(1) A new report has concluded that advertising managers are becoming increasingly interested in children. Studies show that children influence about 50 percent of things that families buy, so they are an attractive target for advertisers. (2) John Taylor, the author of the report and a lecturer at the Department of Media and Communications at the University of West London, says: ‘Advertisers can reach their target in many ways. They can, for example, show an ad many times during school holidays, they can make the TV commercials a little louder than the programmes to attract attention, or they can sponsor programmes and show their commercials just before the programme begins.’ (3) Most advertisements which are aimed at children are short, imaginative and often in the form of animated cartoons. ‘Children love the adverts and watch them in the same way as any entertainment programme,’ Taylor says. (4) There are concerns about advertising which are aimed at young people. Theconcerns are shared by Sarah Durham, a writer and journalist specialising in media analysis. ‘The most worrying thing is that children do not think carefully when they see television advertisements. They are less critical than adults and do not usually realise that the advertisement has a persuasive message, to encourage them or their parents to spend as much money as possible on the product or service,’ she says. (5) There are also concerns over the vast sums of money that junk food manufacturers spend on advertising to persuade children to buy their food products. Many advertisements, argues Durham, promote food that is a lot higher in fat, salt and sugar than healtрier alternatives. ‘Many companies target children with offers of free toys, models of cartoon characters, gimmicky, attractive packaging and interactive websites. In most western countries, there are a lot more advertisements during children’s TV for food than any other type of product, and these are mainly for confectionery such as candies, sweetened breakfast cereals and fast food restaurants.’ (1770) Activity 2.5. In the text above find examples of Passive.
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