Blog image for marketing aimed at kids

I have to admit, I am not a big fan of advertising to kids. When my children watch television, very often the shows are interspersed with adverts hammering them to buy some sort of toy or eat some sort of food. Ten seconds later the pestering begins, “Can I have that?”.

Should kids be targeted in this way? I personally don’t think so, but my intention for this blog is not to criticise questionable marketing tactics aimed at kids. I think there is a lot to be said for educating kids about advertising.

For this blog, I really wanted to see if I could find any examples of marketing to kids that would make me (and my kids) happy.

So I had a look and this is what I came up with:

…hmm not much there. I did try, honestly. Even marketing ‘healthy food’ to kids is not without its problems.

So actually, yes, this blog is about criticising the questionable marketing tactics of companies towards kids.According to a recent audit by the Heart Foundation (ACT), nearly 80% of food and beverage marketing targeted at children in the Australian Capital Territory features unhealthy products. In audited sports venues, 86% of marketing was for unhealthy items, with four out of nine surveyed sports organisations receiving sponsorship from an unhealthy food or beverage company.

So, my call to action is that we should ban all marketing to kids under the age of 11.

Sign here please! Hooyah!