Advertising and its Influence on Young People

Advertising and its Influence on Young People (13-18)

Young people interact with advertising in many forms - on TV, YouTube, Internet, mobile apps, radio, billboards, magazines, newspapers, movies, Internet, advergames, text messaging, social media and more.

To attract the attention of young people, advertising uses many techniques such as colour, sound, images, rhymes, brevity and clarity of messages, influencing the emotional choice of the young people. Once the message of an advertisement is persistent in the mind of a child, it leaves a lasting impression. Loyalty to a brand means a lot of money for the manufacturer.

That's why it's important for young people to learn that ads are trying to get us buy something. Advertisements try to influence the way we think or change our minds about something. Advertisers always aim to make their products look good. Often better than they actually are. Advertising also can sometimes radicalise users and in our case young people. For example - video about vegetarian meals but there are advertisements (or paid content) around it about veganism and drastic diets. Hidden advertisements are also very dangerous - there are thousands of channels in where children unwrap (and thus advertise) toys, chocolate eggs and other foods and products. Influencers, product placements or partnerships are also forms of advertising that young people come into contact with. These forms of marketing should be critically questioned, which requires practice.

How adolescent and young people interact with advertisements can depend on several things, including their age, knowledge and experience. You can help them learn coping with the impact of the ads. Encourage them to ask questions and talk about their feelings and perceptions when exposed to ads.

Learn More

Essential objectives of advertising in all areas are the same: advertising should

convey a positive image,
generate needs and desires,
inspire people to buy,
increase turnover and awareness and
arouse interest in a brand, product or service.

Advertising concepts can be geared precisely to the respective goals and the desired target group, in our case young people. Advertising on television, radio, the Internet and apps tries to intensify its messages by means of frequent repetitions and permanent presence. This high frequency is intended to help the target group better absorb the messages. This can, however, create a great deal of pressure, if tweens and teens are not aware of and do not know how to escape from the frequent and recurring advertising messages. In addition, this can be very frustrating for young people if their awakened consumer wishes remain unfulfilled. Read the article How Marketers Target Kids, which we have linked in our resources section, to learn more about the importance of this age group for marketers.

Watch the videos in our video resources to learn more about the impact of advertising on children. Marketing food to children shows how advertising in this business area works. Sofia Rodriguez-Dantzler also gives a powerful description from a childs point of view on the influence of advertisement on children and young people.

At this age, children are very active with different media. They come into contact with a variety of advertising formats. They know that advertising is used to sell products. Beyond that, however, advertising often sells a lifestyle. In advertisements, people are portrayed as particularly cool, pretty or popular, characteristics that have a high impact especially on young people who are just developing their own identity. Recognising that it is not only the product that is being sold, but also an idea, needs support that can be given by parents and educational staff.

Promotional messages can be dangerous. We have included two articles in our resources looking at dangerous marketing practices that show why a critical approach to advertising content is so important and needs to be trained.

Exercise

It is a good idea to emphasise advertisements that young people see frequently. Parents could ask their children questions about the different claims in the promotional messages. What is the product in this advertisement? What is it for? Who is it for? They could discuss the strategies used to sell a particular product. Is a product actively promoted or indirectly advertised? What is the message and idea that is part of the advertisement? This will help them understand how advertising makes products seem more appealing.

Before handing over to parents you should have a go on advertisements you have seen. Ask yourself the following questions:

Does advertising make you feel something - for example, happiness, a desire to belong, or fear?
Does the ad feature popular celebrities or sports stars to promote the product?
Does the ad connect an idea to the product - for example, does the ad make people look younger or smarter when they use the product?
Does the ad promote the product by giving you something for free - for example, do you get one month for free if you sign an annual contract?

You could do this also at your parents evening. Show a common block of advertisements and ask parents these questions. They will get a better feeling why it is important to question what we see in ads and they will be able to help children to realise that they can't believe everything they see on TV or social media.

What you learn in this course

You will learn how advertising influence young people, their perception, their habits and how advertising for children also affects parents buying behaviour.
You'll be able to name the objectives of advertising in general.
You can clarify factors for the relevance of adolescents (13-18 years) as a target group for advertising.
You can reproduce the factors of influence of advertising on adolescents between 13 and 18.
You are able to carry out whether this age group fully understands the intention of advertising.

Get ready: Tips for MediaParent consultants

At this age, online media and social media in particular have a great influence on young people and are the place where contact with advertising is most common. Therefore, please also have a look at our courses on the topics Internet and Big Data or Social Media and Instant Messaging. The way social media works as an advertising and data platform is very different from classic media. Algorithms determine what users see, and advertising is strongly geared to users and their habits and interests. Product placements and partnerships are an important part of the advertising strategy of companies. In order to understand this approach, parents should familiarise themselves with how these platforms work. Therefore, in your parents' evening, show examples of how advertising, product partnerships and influencers are displayed and appear in social media in order to give parents an understanding of the relevance of this topic. Use the parents' evening as a space for exchange and discussion.