Influence of Toy Ads on Children
Advertisers bombard children with more than 40,000 TV ads per year, according to a 2006 article in the journal "Pediatrics." With so much exposure to such ads, many parents wonder what kind of effects marketing tactics have on their kids, especially ads for toys, games and other products that directly target children. While toy ads don̵7;t have the same potential to negatively influence a child as do other advertisements -- such as those that promote drinking and smoking, for example -- they still have a rhetorical effect on what children think about, and how.
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Repetition
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The objective of toy advertisements is simple -- to persuade a child to desire an item. One of the most frequent ways advertisers attempt to do this is through repetition -- that is, exposing your child to the same commercial message repeatedly. By repeatedly showing a toy, logo and brand name to child viewers, advertisers are able to familiarize kids with their product, which increases the likelihood that a child will ask mom or day to buy it.
Rehearsal
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If you̵7;ve ever had an annoyingly catchy TV commercial jingle stuck in your head, you̵7;ve been the victim of the rehearsal marketing tactic. Advertisers purposely use catchy, rhyming, easy-to-remember songs to get their messages to replay in viewers̵7; minds, long after the commercial is over. When a child continues to hear, think about or sing toy ad jingles, they rehearse and memorize the content, which encourages them to remember the product for a long time, according to a research paper titled "Children as Consumers: Advertising
and Marketing" at FutureofChildren.org.
Persuasion
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Getting kids to become familiar with, think about and remember a product is only half of the battle for toy advertisers. The other half is getting the kids to truly want and desire the product. Advertisers increase a product̵7;s desirability and encourage children to want them with several persuasive tricks. The next time you see a toy ad, pay close attention to it. You might notice that images of the toy take up your entire TV screen. Advertisers do this to make the toy appear larger than it is. You might also notice that the child actors use a toy with other toys, parts and props that aren̵7;t included -- a tactic that makes the product seem much more amusing and enthralling than it probably is. Advertisers will also edit commercials so that kids don̵7;t see the boring aspects of a toy, such as the time it takes to put it together or set it up, and will use animation and other special effects to increase the product̵7;s ̶0;wow̶1; factor.
Action
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Repetition, rehearsal and persuasive desirability tactics work to produce a single outcome -- getting your child to relentlessly beg and plead with you to buy the toy. Researchers from Bowling Green State University refer to this phenomenon as ̶0;The Nag Factor.̶1; All that familiarizing, memorizing and desirability that toy ads instill in young viewers leads to children who will cry and complain until they have the toy they now so desire. And it works -- U.S. children are responsible for persuading parents to spend billions of dollars in the United States each year, according to Bowling Green researchers.
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