Children as Consumers
5.
Against this backdrop, the concerns of parents and others we heard from during this Review included:
- social pressures on parents, peer pressure and 'pester power', as well as the volume of advertising and marketing;
- the effectiveness of current advertising regulation;
- inappropriate advertising aimed at (or seen by) children; and
- 'new' marketing techniques (especially those that use new technology).
Pressure to consume: peers, 'pester power' and parents
6.
Together with the marketing of brands as well as products, and the volume of merchandising accompanying popular television, film and book characters, parents are concerned that commercial practices contribute to a “layering” effect that can be overwhelming and which they fear is having a negative impact on family life.
7.
Children are increasingly using the internet (Ofcom, 2011(2)) and in doing so are exposed to a significant volume of marketing messages as social networking sites and other sites popular with Children become increasingly Parent, Call for Evidence response commercialised and companies spend more on online advertising. UK internet advertising grew 12.8 per cent in 2010, with the biggest gain being in display advertising, which grew by more than a quarter (27.5 per cent) to £945.1 million, including a nearly 200 per cent surge in display advertising in a social media environment (Internet Advertising Bureau, 2011).
"It is the cacophony of advertising messages everywhere that make it hard to escape."
Parent, Call for Evidence response
8.
In addition, alongside the development of integrated marketing strategies across the range of media channels, advertising and marketing techniques are increasingly sophisticated and often hard to distinguish from content: even older children find it hard to say whether advergames, for example, are designed to entertain or to persuade (Fielder, Gardener, Nairn and Pitt, 2008).
9.
It must be the case, then, that children are under more pressure from advertisers and marketers to consume than they have been in the past.
10.
However, some of this pressure is felt by children and parents more indirectly in the form of social pressure to conform to certain norms. Alongside factors such as value for money, educational qualities, and the longer—term potential for enjoyment and use of particular products, previous research (Phoenix, 2011), our Call for Evidence and our qualitative
55
