Every Nook And Cranny: Ethical Analysis

In today’s society, advertisements are second shadows. They follow you on the highway, plastered on exceptionally large billboards. They follow you on the Internet, popping up after every click of the mouse. They follow you at your own home, when you turn on the television. No matter where you go, companies are thrusting their products upon you; there is simply no escape.

In Eric Schlosser article, “ Kid Kustomers” he focuses on how American companies have began to target kids in the marketing business. This began in the 80’s and the companies attempt to influence children at a young age to decide on what companies they will buy from. Doing so the companies hope to create lifelong customers and increasing their profit. This can be seen in areas such as a children’s club where ads are seen regularly to be viewed by the kids. Nevertheless these companies benefit from targeting child audiences because eventually it will increase sales.

Eric Schlosser, the author of “Kid Kustomers”, puts a spotlight on the marketing on children. He starts off by talking about the effect on present day marketing. Companies like phone, oil, and automobile are targeting the children the most. He argues that kid-based companies weren’t that bad in the past, but now there are tons of companies who only focus on children. He has provided a lot of studies that support his explanation on marketing strategies.

In this article, Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor are completely unbiased on their argument on how our country is being controlled by corporations. Both authors show awareness on how large corporations have gained access to every aspect of our lives with advertising. Ruskin and Schor do this by sharing influential background information on the corporations. Throughout my high school career several brand names like “M&M’s” and “Sprite” sponsored my school’s sport teams.

To help prove his point, Turow includes examples of ordinary consumers and how advertising companies have affected their lives. Turow includes a story of a fictional, middle class family that has been targeted by advertising companies. This example is important because it illustrates the power of the media on a small scale and how it can affect families, the reader’s family included. Turow includes this fictional example because it is a real possibility in today’s world, and it happens to the family without them realizing

It is obvious that media plays a significant role in our society. It affects every aspect of our lives - political, social, and cultural. In the various works including articles, lectures and films, Jean Kilbourne presents an insightful and critical analysis of advertising and its profound negative effect on all of us. She states that, “Advertisement creates a worldview that is based upon cynicism, dissatisfaction and craving” (p. 75). She discusses the issue in a very objective and impartial manner, “The advertisers aren’t evil.

In Eric Schlosser‘s essays, the author shows how the social media are targeting children by their ads and advertisements. He exposes the negative side of advertising especially when children are implicated. The author explores children’s cooperation with these companies whether consciously or unconsciously through their behavior and ways of convincing their parents to get them what they want. He mentions how these same parents by lack of spending enough time with kids pamper them and don’t refuse their desires. Schlosser gives more explanations by introducing several examples of these companies such as Disney, McDonald, clothes, oil, and phone companies, too without openly blaming neither of them.

How Advertising is Leading Kids to Make Poor Choices Currently, the average American child today is exposed to an estimated 40,000 television commercials a year, over 100 a day. Advertisers try to expose children and teens to as much advertising as possible, this is to get children and teens to want to buy their products. Another factor is that advertisers use different techniques to get kids to buy their products, these techniques include bandwagon, transfer, avant-garde, facts and figures, and testimonials. Yet, children don’t realize they are being subjected to these techniques and with all the advertisements that kids are being exposed to today, these advertisements are leading kids to make poor choices. “Television, radio, cable, and

Modern Americans are still motivated to spend on various products, whether they are useful and necessary or not, as the result of powerful mass advertising campaigns, widely broadcast through many forms of media. Children and young adults are usually the main targets for such campaigns. It is estimated that the average American child watches between 25,000 to 40,000 television commercials per year so advertising undeniably has a great power over the young minds, who in turn would influence their parents and guardians (Shah, 2010). More than 30 billion dollars are spent by families every year as the result of this strategy, which is progressively adapted by many companies (Shah, 2010). Additionally, thanks to these advertisements, people pay more attention to keeping up with the current trend, with what is considered the most up to date rather than the overall necessity of the product.

The new technology of mass production and advertisement encouraged consumerism in the time period. Advertisers used new techniques in selling their product by introducing an ideal and associating their products to the ideal. However, the ideal of the advertisements contradicted with the traditional

The environment is pledging an elitist appeal but the warm colors found in the image attract the populist group. In Jack Solomon’s “Masters of Desire the Culture of American Advertising” he explains a paradox in the American psyche. He argues that Americans simultaneously desire superiority and equality, as a result, advertisers create images that exploit those opposing conditions. He emphasizes that America is a nation of fantasizers. He sums up that advertisers create consumer hunger by working with our subconscious dreams and desires in the marketplace.

In the essay “Kid Kustomers” by Eric Schlosser, Schlosser discusses children advertising and its effectiveness. About twenty-five years ago, hardly any American company marketed towards children unlike today where the majority is directed towards children. According to an expert this era was known as “the decade of the child consumer.” Ad agencies implemented children into marketing in order to increase “consumption.” The Joe Camel ad campaign revealed how effortlessly children were impacted by ads, claiming it to be as well known as “Mickey Mouse.”

Do companies create consumer demand or simply try to meet customers’ needs? I believe advertising shapes as well as mirrors society. A case in point, advertisements can shape society's perception of ‘beauty." For instance, in magazines and movies, quite often young girls strive to look-like and emulate the digitally enhanced images of women in magazines. As such, some critics argue that advertising abuses its influence on children and teenagers in particular, amongst others.

Chris McCandless, whose story is analyzed in Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, is a young adult who decides to leave his known habits and material belongings behind and live a completely self-sufficient life in the wilderness, a choice which ultimately leads to his death. In doing that, he also forfeits his family and friends. With that in mind, a question can be posed regarding the ethics of said behavior. As a childless, single and financially independent man, Chris McCandless has absolute ownership of his body and thus his decision to continue doing a sport that he knows can kill him is ethically defensible.

Levitt’s article certainly invited a plethora of scholastic research into the area of “culture” and “values” in advertising, with supporters and opponents, from various disciplines taking either a ‘pro or con’ stand on the homogenizing effect of globalization. For example, Sine (2000) wrote that patterns of consumption (as a result of globalized marketing efforts) are breeding ‘ a borderless youth culture,’ or as Naomi Klein (2000:129) puts it in a way that couldn’t be more succinct, “an army of teen clones marching in “uniform” as the marketers say – into a global mall.” Others had argued that globalization through one-way flow of media products and