If you and your kids think you are constantly seeing and hearing more ads online you’re right. But unless your kids can identify a phish[i] from a fish, recognize the trustworthiness of advertisers’ claims and detect how ads are designed to shift and manipulate consumers’ perceptions, they won’t be able to understand that the bombardment of commercial messages are biased and intended to persuade them.
There has been a marked increase in the amount of time kids spend online. Research from the National Cyber Security Alliance[ii] found kids are spending 33 percent of their day – or 50 percent – of their waking hours online.
At the same time, advertisers have increased the amount they are spending to target each online user. According to an April 2012 study by GroupM[iii] the average online advertising investment per online user has doubled from 2006-2011. Last year, advertisers in the U.S. spent an estimated $162 per-person. In 2012 this spending is predicted to rise to $174.
In 2011, online advertising revenues reached a record $31.7 billion and now exceed the ad revenue of Cable TV, according to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers[iv].
Among the channels for online advertising, search still claims the lion’s share, but mobile advertising is growing the fastest[v]. In the U.S., mobile media advertising saw triple-digit growth between 2010 and 2011 when ad spending reached $6.3 billion; and this is expected to nearly double to $11.6 billion in 2012.
That is a lot of money being spent to influence internet users. While most advertisers adhere to nationally regulated and industry standards when marketing to children, there are at least 7.5 million kids 12-years-old or younger[vi] using sites like Facebook whose ads are not intended for children. These ads target adults, with content about alcohol and gambling, contraceptives, subscriptions services, etc.
Given this landscape, youth need to be armed with a basic understanding of advertising techniques and the skills needed to evaluate advertising content – especially when ads are smoothly implanted within services.
To teach your children how to identify and evaluate ads, here’s a basic overview of the types of ads that they encounter online, some types inherently have a far greater opportunities to persuade youth than others, and some can make it very difficult for a child to identify what they’re seeing is actually an ad at all.
Your goal as parents is to help raise your child’s awareness of advertising and to help them make wise decisions. Kids over the age of six or seven quickly grasp advertising tactics when you talk about what ads do, so start early with your conversations to help them become aware of commercial messages, and the expanding commercialism of youth.
Start by explaining that advertising plays on feelings by creating ads that make people believe their products are going to make us feel better, have more fun, be prettier or stronger, or in some way be better. Advertisers do this by using a few common tricks, like making claims that make us feel good or scared or make us believe we need to hurry to buy something before the “sale” ends.
Sometimes advertisers use an authoritative tone by saying things like “studies have shown” or “doctors recommend.” Other times, they use fun cartoon characters, popular actors or actresses to make us think that a product must be good. Some ads use sexuality to sell their product, making users believe that beautiful people use the product, and if they use the product maybe we’ll be beautiful as well.
Find an advertisement that you can look at with your child and help him or her identify what the ad is doing to make the brand’s product seem like something everyone needs. Do advertisers make the product look bigger (often done with toy ads)? Do the people in the picture look happy and smiling (suggesting if you had the product you too would be happy and smiling)? Help your child identify the goal of the ad – is it to sell something, to make you feel better about the brand, to shape your opinion? Then assist your kid in learning how to research the claims in ads to identify those parts that are true and which parts are exaggerations.
Help your kids understand that advertising creates unneeded necessities (i.e., things they don’t need and perhaps never knew about but that they suddenly feel they must have).
Talk about the types of advertising and help them understand they should never click on links, because no matter how good the ad looks it may be malicious and will infect their phone or computer with malware. According to Consumer Reports, one-third of households surveyed had experienced a malicious software infection in the previous year. All told, they estimate that malware cost consumers $2.3 billion last year and caused them to replace 1.3 million PCs.
It will be very helpful for your kids to install a tool that will flag risky search results. This way, when they search for something they’ve seen in an ad, or just search in general, they’ll have technology helping them identify which sites are riddled with malware and which sites are “clean.”
Let your kids compare the types of ads, and help them judge those types that are harder to spot. (In general, as you go down the list of ad types, the ads become more difficult to discern.)
Help older children think about how the ad was targeted to them. Was it contextually targeted? Was it targeted towards them based on previous actions they’ve taken (behaviorally targeted)? Or is it location based? Kids really get an eye opener as they realize how these ads are relying on their personal information and actions to determine what they see.
Another fun learning tool is to have your child search a term and compare it to what you see when you do the same search. Are the results different? Are the ads you see different?
Providing this advertising education will help your children be safer and smarter about advertising manipulation, keep your devices safer, and limit the overexposure of your family’s personal information privacy.
[i] The fraudulent practice of sending e-mails claiming to be from legitimate companies to fool individuals to revealing personal information the criminal can use to commit ID theft.
[v] US Mobile Media Revenue Growth to Outpace 17% Global Average
[vi] Consumer Reports study in July of 2011, found that at least or under were using Facebook – and that 5 million of these kids were 10 or younger