Elizabeth DeHaven
Professor Dr. Nicole Martins
T317
11/3/13

Paper C

As I was watching an episode of the Nickelodeon series, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, an advertisement for “Power Rangers Megaforce” action figures caught my attention. The ad was filled with many different toys flying everywhere. Toys were moving and jumping through the air all by themselves. The commercial not only advertised the action figure people, but also different guns, motorcycles, and add-on pieces to the toys. Different types of action noises were blasted throughout the ad to enhance the action figure’s abilities. Also, there showed a young boy in the ad, presumably around the age of 5, playing with the toys while his face was lit up with pure excitement. The TV show, Kung Fu Panda: Legend of Awesomeness, is directed at children between the ages of 5 and 7. Since kids in this age group are watching this show, the advertisements that are going to be shown will also be directed at kids this age. Young boys ages 5-7 watching this show would be the main target age group and would be highly captivated by this action filled advertisement. In a research study by Kunkel and Gantz, it was found that the same types of products dominated commercials during children’s programs (Strasburger, Wilson, & Jordan, 2014). The four main categories of children’s ads found on television were toys, cereals, snacks, and fast food. This proved to be true as I continued to watch the following ads after the Power Ranger’s commercial. Following this ad, there was one for Mario Cart, one for the snack Go-Gurt, one for McDonalds, and two other toy advertisements. Power Ranger’s action figures clearly fall under the category of toys. Toys are the highest type of product advertised during children’s TV programming, contributing to 34% of all advertisements for children (Strasburger, Wilson, & Jordan, 2014). Advertisers know which certain demographics are watching a show and know exactly how to persuade them into wanting that product. The difference between advertisers and children though, are that the children have no idea they are being persuaded into buying this product. At around age 5, kids begin to realize that there is a difference between a commercial and a show, but they don’t realize that these advertisers are trying to get them to fall into the pressure of purchasing their product. This idea of conceptual thinking doesn’t occur until around the age of 8. Children need to learn and develop skills in order to realize the certain tricks of advertising. Also, a young boy watching this advertisement will be drawn to the product because of the other boy his age in the ad enjoying the toy. Advertisers know that children are drawn to things when knowing that other people like them and are enjoying the product as well. Thinking back to Piaget’s theory of developmental stages in the processing of mass media, children in this age group whom this advertisement is directed towards are in the preoperational stage. One stage within this preoperational time is called Animism. Animism is the idea that young children have a harder time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. While watching this Power Rangers advertisement, children in this stage probably wouldn’t be able to realize that all of the movements and noises made by the action figures, really need to be made by the child while they are playing. These fast movements and crazy noises that seem to come from the action figures themselves, which in reality are enhanced by the advertisement, are the main appeal used in this ad to persuade the children to want their product. Children have difficulty recognizing and discounting exaggeration in the context of persuasive messages (Moore, 2000). In a journal written by Thomas E. Barry, Professor of Marketing at Southern Methodist University, he says that critics have attacked advertising both as being unfair and as being more deceptive than informative in many instances. He also said that in 1978, the FTC proposed a children’s television advertising rule including in its alternatives a ban on all advertising to young children (Barry, 1980). The critics argue that advertising to children is inherently unfair because of the vulnerability of children to adult manipulation through persuasive messages (Barry, 1980). Since younger children have more difficulty differentiating appearance from reality, they rely heavily on perceptual cues in judging an ad and thus are likely to believe that products look and perform the way they are depicted in commercials (Strasburger, Wilson, & Jordan, 2014). Young boys within the ages of 5 through 7 are also in the stage called centration. They are too focused on the attention grabbing details of this advertisement. They are too captured by the different toys flying everywhere. Since the centration stage makes it even harder to recognize background information, it makes it nearly impossible for any 5, 6, or 7 year old to recognize a disclaimer being shown or presented in an advertisement. As defined in our book, disclaimers are warnings or disclosures about a product, intended to prevent possible deception caused by an ad. Disclaimers are difficult even for a mature adult sometimes to see or hear in a commercial. Disclaimers are hard to notice because they are usually put in very small letters at the bottom of the screen or spoken very rapidly at the end of the advertisement. To my surprise, this Power Rangers advertisement had a total of three different disclaimers. The first saying, “hand activation required” in small gray letters in the bottom left corner of the screen. The second disclaimer said, “fantasy stimulation sound effect” in the same tiny letters as the first. The last disclaimer said, “all items sold separately,” in a very fast adult voiceover at the end of the commercial. I was shocked to find out that according to our textbook, three disclaimers in one advertisement is completely normal. All of these disclaimers are what makes the ad seem so cool and exciting to young children. Elizabeth S. Moore says that children belong to a world of thinking and feeling that is properly their own. Television advertising is a pervasive presence in the lives of most American children (Moore, 2000). Since young children aren’t cognitively aware of disclaimers, it is likely that they will be a little disappointed once they actually own the product. For any child within the ages of 5 through 7, it is almost certain that they will be mislead by this advertisement. Most children at this age believe what they see. It takes time and experience for children to learn that the product in the ad isn’t as prestigious as it appears to be. One way to learn that advertisements can be deceptive is to experience the disappointment over a purchase on their own. Others have suggested that until children actually experience discrepancies between products as advertised and as consumed, they are unable fully to comprehend advertising's persuasive intent (Moore, 2000). A study shows that by 6th grade, the vast majority of children can describe a product they bought that turned out to be worse than what was depicted in the ad (Strasburger, Wilson, & Jordan, 2014). Advertisers that are targeting products towards children take full advantage of the fact that they are unaware of the reality of the product. This is why they do things like they did in this Power Ranger’s Megaforce commercial. They try to glamorize the toys by making them move and make noises on their own. The ad also tricks kids by thinking they are going to get all of the different add-ons to the action figures and the different gadgets shown on the screen. Although advertising may seem unfair for young children, early exposure to these tricks in ads will help their ability to recognize them again in the future.

Bibliography
Barry, Thomas E. "A Framework for Ascertaining Deception in Children's Advertising." Journal of Advertising 9.1 (1980): 11-18. JSTOR. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Web. 4 Nov. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4188288>.

Moore, Elizabeth S., and Richard J. Lutz. "Children, Advertising, and Product Experiences: A Multimethod Inquiry." Journal of Consumer Research 27.1 (2000): 31-48. JSTOR. The University of Chicago Press. Web. 4 Nov. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/314307>.
Strasburg, V.C., Wilson, B.J., & Jordan, A. (2014). Children, Adolescents, and the Media (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA; Sage Publications.