If you want to know the latest social trends or anything about pop culture, simply ask a teenager. The best way for marketers to get the attention of kids and teens is through social media, as this is where trends are born. Advertisers use social media as a platform for marketing brands. I spend most of my time on Instagram and Snapchat, and these two platforms are loaded with ads. There should be stricter guidelines towards online advertising, especially when it comes to social media, since I find it very creepy that algorithms can track exactly what you are searching for online and then those ads will appear on your social media feed. I feel that it is an invasion of privacy, and younger children can’t really consider the risks of it.
Advertisers target kids to draw their attention towards products being sold. Children can recognize interesting parts of an ad and want the product, and if they do have the money to buy it, they won’t consider important budget factors, like an adult would, and they will just buy it. One method effectively used by advertisers to target children is influencer marketing, where social media influencers use their accounts to promote products. They show different products in their stories, ads, and videos; all are strong ways to draw teens’ attention to brands. Children are easily swayed by ads because kids don’t know any better; their brains aren’t fully developed so they don’t even know it is an ad. They just think it is part of the game they are playing. This could be concerning, given that children view roughly 40,000 commercials each year (Malito).
Online ads are very significant tools for targeting children. Ads can be presented through social media, educational apps or even just an app where you play a game; sometimes it may make you watch an ad in order to continue the game, so that kids pretty much have to see the ad if they want to play. Even if you go on easybib.com, when citing your sources, an ad will pop up and the site will make you watch it. Exposure to online advertising is very common. We see it more often than we think, with 95% of educational apps containing paid ads (Malito). Few laws exist to regulate online ads, especially towards kids.
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The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act basically says that websites and kids’ clubs cannot solicit personal info for kids under thirteen years old (ftc.gov). This law does not say anything about specific content of kids’ ads. Therefore advertisers can advertise whatever they want on social media and other platforms. Other rules state that advertisers cannot outright lie in ads geared towards children. Most advertisers try to avoid ads that are not age appropriate, but this isn’t really an actual law. The laws are not effective at actually helping kids know what’s actually appropriate and in their best interest in an ad.
Given all of this information about the frequency of online ads, I chose to look at my own Instagram to see how many ads I was being exposed to and what kind through this platform. The types of ads that I saw covered the following topics: travel, clothing, workout videos, bathing suits, audible.com/books on tape, and shoes. These ads were targeted towards me based on my personal interests, my age, current trends, and my gender. All of these ads are related to my platform preferences and browser history.
For example, I had recently looked at bikinis online, and later ads for the exact website I had been looking at came up in my Instagram feed. Instagram’s algorithm targets what users like based on their search history, and feeds them ads related to that. The ads that I am seeing on my Instagram feed have directly influenced my own consumption habits. There have been times where I will see an ad, for example, for clothing, and I will look into that item more and want to buy it. This is negative because it builds impulsive shopping habits.
My own exposure to online ads on Instagram is mainly through influencer marketing, story-based ads and videos. Sometimes I don’t even notice that they are ads, but later I realize that I am being exposed to products that I want to buy in a very subtle way. Advertisers need to limit the amount of ads being exposed to children. Most of the time when a kid is playing a game and an ad pops up on his or her screen, they will just assume that it’s part of the game; children don’t know any better therefore why even bother to try and target them at such a young age. All advertisers need to do is get kids’ attention, therefore they will be interested in the product being marketed.
There really aren’t many regulations regarding online ads but, under current laws I would assume these ads are allowable. The ads that I am seeing on my Instagram feed are both positive and negative; Sometimes you think you want something and you don’t really need it, but other times, that item turns out to be a necessity. At times I get sucked in to believing that I really need the product or item being marketed on my feed. I would have never known about some of the products being advertised if they didn’t show up on my page. I feel that the impact on individuals younger than I am is negative, because kids younger than me won’t be able to differentiate whether the ad is good or bad.
Online ads use many different tactics to target kids. Through advertising, marketers draw kids’ attention to different products being sold. Kids are exposed to a lot of advertising because they spend so much time using technology and on their devices. Online ads for kids are so popular nowadays because kids don’t read newspapers or magazines and they don’t even watch tv very much. Unfortunately, there are not many laws to limit the amount of ads being exposed to kids and teens. My own experience of seeing ads on Instagram has impacted my own consumption habits. When it comes to social media stricter guidelines should be enforced because not all online advertising is positive. Some ads can have a negative impact on kids and teens.
