Advertising

Advertising has become a powerful and an essential tool in the hands of owners of goods and services to persuade customers with a view to increasing the sale of their products. The new technologies have no doubt given a new dimension to their persuasive role.   Advertising has been defined as: “ the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media."(Bovee, 1992, p. 7).

Children and adolescents are an important chunk of our society. Advertisers knowing the innocence and credulity of children are, therefore, leaving no stone unturned to capture that important segment of the consumer society. It has been found that food products attracts children mostly.  

Advertisers of food products are increasingly targeting children and adolescents because the objective behind it is to establish ‘Brand Name Preference’ at an age as early as possible. This targeting is important because huge sums of money are spent on advertising and there are several thousands of brands to sell and children and adolescents are attractive customers and future adult customers as they are viewed as a major market force by the food industry, they have become the target of great and specialized advertising efforts. There is growing interest on youth because of their spending habits, their purchasing influence and as future adults customers. Among food advertising and marketing channels used to target children and adolescents there are the internet, television advertising, in school marketing, product placements and youth targeted promotions of certain foodstuffs.

Television viewing starts early, exposure to food starts also at an early age. It has been found that in the U.S children’s television the most frequently advertised product category is food and of all ads targeting food ads account for over 50%. On average children view one food commercial every five minutes of...