Advertising, the Media and Marketing Communications

Should children (and other vulnerable groups) be protected from contemporary advertising practices?
Name
Course
Instructor
Date
The spending power of parents affects family decisions, and parents increasingly base their buying habits depending on their children’s preferences (Calvert 2008: 215). Even though, children are vulnerable, there is less agreement on the ethics surrounding advertisement targeted at vulnerable groups. The advertising lobby groups view advertising as being informative to the extent that consumers can grow more confident about products (Tylee 2007:21). Nonetheless, there are concerns that advertisers use manipulative tactics which are geared towards increasing consumerism. There are opposing arguments on whether there ought to be a ban on advertisements targeting children, where supporters of the ban state that children do not have the maturity to decode these messages and are unfair. On the other hand, there are those who argue that, as children get older they are able to identify and differentiate advertising. This essay gives a background on the need for protection to vulnerable groups with regards to advertising, it also highlights on ethical issues related to advertising, the association between cognitive theories of psychology as well as the effect of persuasive ads and marketing programmes
In the UK, Advertising Codes of practice give the guidelines on what is permitted when targeting children, while also emphasizing on the need to maintain social responsibility and avoid misleading messages, including those that cause harm or offence to vulnerable persons including children. Even though, there is no agreement on whether children are legitimate consumers, there is consensus that it is crucial to have some form of regulation in order to ensure that advertisers are socially responsible (Moore 2004;164). There are various forms of advertising that can be inappropriate for children and vulnerable groups. For instance, secularised imagery and marketing of junk food target to children may give them the wrong ideas. It is not entirely possible to limit and prevent children seeing all ads that are inappropriate, and as such the debates on the effect of advertising and marketing on children.
Advertising is a crucial tool to enable the target audience to understand about a product, enhance product recognition and choice of brand. Marketing and advertising cannot be ignored for their role in enhancing how people’s product preference. However, in doing so, there is a need to take into account the ethical concerns on providing accurate information to vulnerable groups and children (Buijzen 2007:413). In any case, the vulnerable groups should be protected, whereby the right of privacy and providing information in a way that does not exploit the vulnerable groups should be adhered to (Cowell 2000: 26). Marketing target to minority groups also ought to be ethical and socially responsible. Since children have a limited capability to evaluate information, advertisers have the responsibility to protect them against susceptibilities.
The debate surrounding the commercialization of advertising targeted at children and vulnerable people has elicited debate on the effect and implicatio...