“Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Today I’m making over $400,000 by selling you a product you don’t need—oh wait, that’s not the right script—today we’re trapping 100 people in circles, making them suffer, and the last to leave gets $500,000!” Sure, it sounds crazy, but in reality, it’s not too far off from what children on social media are actually consuming today. Everything they watch is filled to the brim with ads carefully integrated to influence them while they’re still young and naïve. From specific targeted ads to YouTubers’ sponsored content and ad reads, companies capitalize on the unethical nature of personalizing advertisements for children.
Children are, inherently, an incredibly vulnerable population to influences. Kids don’t gain the ability to determine the difference between a persuasive program and a selling program until ages 11–16, and even then, they’re continually affected by their surroundings. They’re only able to discern a “selling” tone starting at age 7, but can tell an advertisement from a regular video at age 3. These stages of commercial socialization can be weaponized by advertisers to create ads for age groups who haven’t developed certain skills, preventing children from making an informed and rational decision on the product. Children also have poor critical thinking skills and impulse restraint, meaning they have a difficult time in deciding if they really need a product or if it would be beneficial for them.
Plus, online advertisements are specifically designed to make children create a relationship with the product. Ads embedded into free apps are often designed to urge kids to consume the sponsored content by providing an in-game reward. This then allows kids to become actively engaged with brands, creating a superficial connection to a product they feel they “need” to buy. Companies also intentionally create ads that cater to the interests of children by utilizing cartoons or popular characters in their commercials. Children recognize and “trust” cartoons, often preferring brands who have a likeable mascot or cartoon associated with it. Does this mean brands shouldn’t have cartoons as a part of their branding? Not necessarily, but using them to access an already vulnerable population slightly blurs an ethical line between marketing a product and taking advantage of a child’s preferences.
Moreover, children play a unique role in their families in that they heavily influence their parents’ consumer habits. Since parents want to make their children happy, they regularly follow their kid’s interests and the products they request. With today’s parents often working long hours, they’ve also become more likely to “make up” for the lost time spent with their child through buying them more presents.
Especially with the rise of influencers and children overwhelmingly consuming YouTube and sponsored content, ads are becoming more and more targeted to kids. Take Mr. Beast, for example. A YouTuber with millions of dollars in revenue who greatly profits off exploiting the poor, Mr. Beast has taken children’s media by storm. He often makes sponsored content for his young audience. Yet, surprisingly, most of his sponsors aren’t necessarily targeted to his audience. Many of his sponsors—TurboTax, Western Union, Shopify, Wix—are actually meant for adults, but why? One reason could be that parents often consume the content with their children. Supervising their kids by passively listening, they can become unconsciously biased in favor of certain companies because they recognize brand names. Another reason could be that as the children grow up, they will be more likely to use the services they were advertised as children. They make a connection with the influencer, in this case, Mr. Beast, and trust his judgment on what to use: as previously mentioned, they’re naïve and easily impressionable. Essentially, Mr. Beast is, intentionally or unintentionally, indoctrinating an entire audience of kids to use his sponsors once they grow up. This becomes a problem when instead of forming their own opinions or conducting their own research about certain services, children rely on the opinions of a figure they look up to, or remember most, and become exposed to the increased possibility of being influenced into purchasing harmful products.
Ultimately, companies want their consumers to be children. The younger someone starts to use a product, the more likely they are to continue that practice into adulthood. Thus, companies that target young audiences nearly guarantee a reliable adult audience without having to pay to sway the already firm opinions of the adults. That’s why skincare is being pushed younger and younger; these girls will then grow up with and stay loyal to the brand and beauty standards the company creates.
Plus, not only are they benefitting from children buying their products, but often children are the products. With the rise of companies wanting to improve their search engine optimization (SEO), data profiles of what consumers are interested in are sold regularly. Everything someone clicks, likes, or watches is filed into a portfolio, which is then sold to a large company to improve their advertisement algorithms. Of course, “consumer” also includes kids—companies make profiles of children’s behavior online in order to give the child more ads that align with their interests. Today’s children see almost 40,000 advertisements annually, and that number is only going up. It’s time to take control of consumers’ data, and that starts with protecting children. Advertisers need to be forced to stop taking advantage of the innocence of kids, either through greater online privacy laws or increased focus on stopping ads in content made for kids. Stop profiting off literal children and let kids be kids—they’ll probably buy your product eventually anyways.