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On average, your brain absorbs more than three thousand internet, television, radio, and street advertisements in one day(Adams par.1). Major corporations have developed strategies to manipulate your behavior without you realizing it. This comes from the advertisement industry. Companies pay psychologist big buck to develop these practices. Through years of intense research on consumers and their children, corporations have identified our decision making processes. In other words, they don’t know us, but they know what makes us tick. Business advertising practices that target young people should be banned because they have an adverse effect on today’s youth.
Companies target children in their advertisements because they carry their own consumer power. According to the Media Awareness Network “Parents today are willing to buy more for their kids because trends such as smaller family size, dual incomes and postponing children until later in life mean that families have more disposable income” (How par.3). That is the biggest reason why the advertisement industry has grown exponentially in the past decade, increasing spending from $100 million in 1990 to $2 billion in the year 2000. “Pester Power,” as industry executives call it, refers to the ability of children to nag their parents into buying items that they would not otherwise buy. Barbara Martino, an former advertising executive, recalls “We're relying on the kid to ‘pester’ the mom to buy the product, rather than going straight to the mom” (How par.4-5). This genius tactic reinforces the product by the appealing to the child, who just might nag the parent enough to buy the product, and not the parent, who is less likely to buy the product. Marketers also try to build brand name loyalty at a very young age. The Media Awareness Network reports “Marketers plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young children, in the hopes that the seeds will grow into lifetime relationships” (How par.13). The...