Brain-Washing Criminals
Brain-Washing Criminals
Did you know that in 1983 advertisers spent $100 million on marketing to children? They spent more than $17 billion last year on marketing to children. Advertisers used Shrek as a spokesperson for 71 different brands of junk food. And the department of Health and Human services promotes good health with Shrek as their spokesperson. This is wrong, because they came up with Shrek brand in food and Shrek branded Happy Meals. So to make Shrek as the spokesperson for the department of Human services it is confusing the kids, because they don’t know which side Shrek is on. Advertisers use many other forms of deceptive techniques to advertise to children.
One form of deceptive advertising is Immersive advertising. An example of this is the brain washing website called Neopets. Neopets have these cute, little, animal figures that are hired to drag innocent children into their trap, just small enough for the innocent children to be hooked on for a lifetime.Neopets advertise things like Froot Loops, Limited Too and Lucky Charms. A ten year old girl named, Lucia Urbanic has a Neopets account and she has a blue elephant. She says that it is way more fun than homework. This website is brainwashing and made her think that this website was actually fun. In reality this website is just a way to advertise to children without using the television. The main idea of this article is that this website, put kids in front of marketing of real world merchandise and this is drawing some parents. This is making parent, even parents buy these products for the children. So basically Neopets. com is like a commercial for a number of companies.
Street Marketing is an idea to find the “coolest kids” in the community and have them wear their product in order to create a buzz. They do this so that other kids will think that this certain product is cool and that would make that person want to buy this certain product. Some advertisers make movies to kids by routinely market violent entertainment, by rating movies R that by the way 80 percent were targeted to children under 17.
A doctor named Dr. Susan Linn, which goes to Harvard Medical School, runs a Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC).She says that the worst type of advertising is viral marketing. Viral marketing is on websites like Myspace and Facebook. An example of Viral Marketing is sending e-cards from Amazon. If someone uses their Myspace account and emails a friend of theirs, the advertisers think that the person’s friends must have the same interests as the person who originally sent the message. An advertiser basically spy on kids on the Internet and e-mails their friends to make it seem like the e-mail was from their friend.
These advertisers are selfish and cruel and all they truly care about is money and their own profits. As you can see, these advertisers use many techniques to advertise to children. This is wrong and these kids don’t know what they are getting into. Kids as young as 6 months could get tied into this media crap. It is wrong and hopefully soon it will stop!
