Задать 17 вопросов к тексту. advertisers targeting young people. a new report has concluded that advertising managers are becoming in creasingly interested in children. studies show that children influence about 50 percent of things that families buy, so the are an attractive target for advertisers.
john taylor, the author of the report and a lecturer at the department of media and communications at the university of west london, says: ' advertisers can reach their target in many ways. they can, for example, show an ad many times durings school holidays, they can make the tv commercials a
little louder than the programmes to attract attention, or the you can sponsor programmes and show their commercials just before the programme begins.' most advertisements aimed at children are short, imaginative and often in the form of animated cartoons. children love the adverts and watch them in
the same way as any entertainment programme,' taylor says. there are concerns about advertising aimed at young people. the concerns are shared by sarah durham, a writer and journalist specialising in media analysis. the most worrying thing is that children do not think carefully when they see
television advertisements. they are less critical than adults and do not usually realise that the advertisement has a persuasive message, to encourage the more their parents to spend as much money as possible on the product or service,' she says. there are also concerns over the vast sums of money
that junk food manufacturers spend on advertising to persuade children to buy their food products. many advertisements, argues durham, promote food that is a lot higher in fat, salt and sugar than healthier alternatives. many companies target children with offers of free toys, models of cartoon
characters, gimmicky packaging and interactive websites. in most western countries, there are a lot more advertisements during children's tv for food than any other type of product, and these are mainly for confectionery, sweetened breakfast cereals and fast food restaurants.' government approaches
to controlling advertising to children vary. in sweden, one of the strictest countries where advertising is concerned, tv advertising to children under the age of 12 is banned. greece bans television advertisements for children's toys between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. other countries, such as denmark and
the netherlands, also have legal controls whereas france, britain and germany prefer self-regulation, arguing that the television industry should regulate itself and bring out a 'code of good conduct '. some countries are not as certain as the swedes that advertising to children is harmful. the
french argue that children need to see many advertisements so that they can develop their ability to think as they grow up. the belief is that advertising will help children to be more aware of its persuasive power. this all means that there is little hope that the situation will be resolved by any
kind of cross-european regulations. because some countries are much more relaxed than others about advertising to children, the european union is unable at present to have a common approach to the problem. until the majority of member states are as sure as the swedes of the harmful nature of
advertising, the current indecision will continue,' concludes taylor.