Advertising Regulations

Advertising under 18 years old

When advertisers try to reach people under the age of 18, a lot of things can come into play. For example, the advertiser needs to know the target-market and/or demographics of the group they are trying to reach, their media use, buyer behavior patterns, and of course the advertising regulations that apply.

In 2009, 24% of the United States population was under 18 years old, which is approximately 74 million people; and to be more exact, 53 million of those 74 million people are between the ages of 6 and 18. This is significant because it is a very large and in the eyes of the advertiser, profitable margin. There are many ways to target such a large group of people, and that is where the ‘target-market’ comes into play, among other things.

In today’s society, children under the age of 18 are using media more and more each day. It was found that “8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week)” (Media Use, n.d.). That information should be underlined in red for advertisers, clearly one way they could target their customer is through media. This amount of media use by children aged 8-18 should be of no surprise due to the access to media that they have at any given time. With the majority of phones having Internet access today, they are always connected. To back up this statement “young people now spend more time listening to music, playing games, and watching TV on their cell phones than they spend talking on them (49 to 33 minutes daily)” (Media Use, n.d.). If you stop and look around at teenagers with a cell phone, chances are you will see them looking at it in their hands rather than holding it to their ear speaking on it. There are many other types of media that people aged under 18 use as well, such as the television, internet (from a computer), and video games. For example, video game systems such as Xbox allow users to play games online. Each time a user signs in, an update is downloaded which can include real life ads being added to the game itself. With the popular video game EA Sports NHL 2011 (a hockey game), real ads are displayed in the game throughout play. There will be company names on the dasher board, scoreboard and hidden throughout the game. This to me is a form of ambush marketing because the kids playing this game have no choice but to see the ads. There are many different ways that this age group uses media, with the main one always being connected to the Internet, social media, and video games with their phones.

When looking at what people aged 18 and under buy, a vast amount of items come into play. For some it is action figures and Barbie dolls whereas another may be purchasing a cell phone. To make this easier, it will be broken down into age groups. Starting with children aged 7 and under. At this stage in their life, most