Ethical Issues of the Child as Consumer

Ethical Issues of the Child as Consumer

TRNKA ŽELJKOVIĆ, Edina

This paper, entitled as "Ethical issues of the child as consumer" deals with the major issues related to child as consumer and children's marketing. Issues related to child as consumer are: what children buy how parents affect children's consumer behavior, how children affect purchase decision of their families and how relationship with peers affects children's purchase decisions? Issues related to children's marketing are what the effect of marketing on children’s behavior is and how children process advertising messages. Special emphasis is on techniques that marketers use when communicating with this group. The most important techniques are those that are used on television and internet. Emphasis is also on ethical issues of the marketing which has children as its target group. Those ethical issues are from critics of marketing that it misleads children to claims that it causes obesity and unhappiness. Main ideas of work are that children are an important market for the producers and they have a great market potential. Children are primary market for some products, but they are also future market for products that they will use in future and influential market on their families. They are group that is particularly vulnerable to the messages that are sent to them. Children under age of 8 can't understand intention of advertiser which makes them easy to mislead. Literature of significant authors in this field is used, such as: McNeal, Gunter, Furnham, Calvert and others. Attention was also on expert articles from this field. Content analysis of advertising messages aimed at children in Bosnia and Herzegovina led to conclusion that those messages are unethical in a large percentage. Unethical messages are mostly in contrast of moral and social standards and they bring up false claims. Besides that, in advertising messages for product that are intended for parents children are used to encourage them on purchase. The study of regulation of marketing to children in developed markets and in Bosnia and Herzegovina proved that regulations of children's marketing in Bosnia and Herzegovina isn't regulated enough by standards and norms. Bosnian regulations are inconsistent with international standards that regulate this field globally. Keywords: Children’s Marketing, Advertising Messages Aimed At Children, Criticism Of Marketing To Children, Regulation Of Marketing To Children.

Article
PeerReviewed

ISSN 2303-4564

International Burch University

2013-05-10

1521