Advertising, Health and

The Nature and Prevalence of Advertising Messages

The vast majority of research on advertising to youth focuses on television advertising. It is estimated that the typical child sees nearly 40,000 television commercials a year, and upfront advertising spending in 2004 on children's network television alone was estimated to be more than $900 million. Although youth spend more time watching television than using other media, the paucity of research examining other media channels leaves a large gap in our knowledge of the role of advertising on young people's healthy and unhealthy lifestyles.

Television advertising influences children and adolescents in two ways. First, advertisers target children and adolescents directly as the primary target audience for products that are relevant to their demographic, such as food, toys, and entertainment (movies, music, etc.). These messages influence young people's purchase and consumption of products as well as the “purchase influence attempts” they make to parents. Second, children and adolescents are exposed to advertising indirectly as a secondary audience for products and services targeted to adults, such as alcohol, tobacco, and most medicines and drugs. Although much of this advertising is adult oriented and therefore less likely to appeal to or be attended to closely by youth, exposure to these messages may have long-term effects, so substantial research has examined the effects of young people's exposure to some advertising targeted to adults.

Changes in a child's or adolescent's consumer behavior may be due to cumulative exposure to ads with age, to learning from significant others, or to maturation and experience. Research on advertising to children grows from an understanding of key issues related to cognitive development, including how children understand advertising and how they are influenced by it, starting at the most fundamental level of information-processing tasks but also including the socialization process of youth. Critical factors include children's ability to discriminate between the program and the commercial, which involves recognition of the persuasive intent of the ad message, and advertising effects such as recall of ads, attitudes toward commercials, brand preferences, and desire for the advertised merchandise. Research also examines the role of production conventions (such as music) and different advertising strategies (such as the use of spokescharacters or celebrities) to enhance the effectiveness of advertising appeals to children.

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