To begin with, the documentary film, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood talks about “research that indicated that children eight and under did not understand the persuasive intent of advertising.” **Since *youths ages eight and under are the majority of what people usually consider as “children”, most children are being tricked into wanting advertised products without the ability to know better. If they cannot interpret the ad’s purpose/intent to sell, advertisers can treat children as a demographic that can always be relied on to get a certain response, making *them easy targets, because they can be influenced to want a *something just from a simple feature in the ad, like an animated character indicating how useful the product is . Also, the SpringBoard article, “Facts About Marketing to Children” explains tweens/teens’ *influencing power by stating, “According to a national survey commissioned by the Center for a New American Dream: American children aged 12 to 17 will ask their parents for products they have seen advertised an average of nine times until the parents finally give in” (8) and that “Nearly a third of those surveyed (32%) admitted to feeling pressure to buy certain products such as clothes and CDs because their friends have them” (11). **With the large amount of advertising in youths’ lives, …show more content…
For instance, the SpringBoard article, “Facts About Marketing to Children” reveals that “According to a national survey commissioned by the Center for a New American Dream: ...More than half of the children surveyed (53%) said that buying certain products makes them feel better about themselves” (10). If youths feel better about themselves after buying certain *things, mental problems, like anxiety and depression from not being about to own a “hot topic” item, will occur in *them. Advertisers can build on a suspicion youths have, the one that they think they have to buy something in order to be relevant, to shape their minds into thinking critical things, like if they don’t have a certain product, they will be an outcast, which will drive *many of them to buy from the companies, because no one truly wants to have negative attention. Furthermore, the website article, “Effects of Advertising on Youth (Age Group of 13-19 Years Age)” from the website Journal of Mass Communication & Journalism supports the fact of adolescents’ mindsets changing by presenting “youth development initiative’s” study, Media Effects and Body Image Perceptions on Youth, which supports how “Female and male adolescent tend to compare themselves with models in television advertisements more frequently at this age and as a result both the gender feel insecure and lack