Alchemist says “I agree with Pericles, if its legal, advertise it, that's they way the world works as it should be.”

I Don’t agree. There are a number of legally available products such as alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs where advertising is either illegal or restricted in some way.

The purpose of advertising is to manipulate and modify behavior – more precisely to try to make consumers consume more of the advertised product. It works. Otherwise corporations wouldn’t spend billions of their shareholders’ money on it. There are some situations where this is clearly immoral and harmful e.g. the promotion of drugs or other addictive substances to children (or, arguably to adults).

Some might argue that it's up to parents to control kids' comsumption patterns. I'm not a parent myself, but if I were I'd be pretty pissed off if I was constantly forced to counter some corporations attempts to manipulate my kids.

Junk food advertising may look naff, but it’s actually very sophisticated at targeting and manipulating its audience, which is mainly children and young people. It is extremely effective at increasing the consumption of its product (although I wouldn’t claim this as the only factor in the so-called obesity epidemic). As with other harmful products we should think very carefully about whether such promotion should be restricted. Personally, I regard targetting any sort of advertising toward children as a form of child abuse.

Rex & Snout

I agree with you both.

Children simply do not have the same level of development of decision making skills that (most) adults have. It IS a gross form of manipulation that advertising these products, which are as detrimental as tobacco or alcohol, to children. I think Snout put it well as 'child abuse' - also a form of parent abuse - try shopping with a bunch of kids at the supermarket.

I understand that the majority of soft-drink companies have stopped supplying schools. Won't stop kids from going to the local cafe, but at least it will reduce the level of consumption of these sweet fizzy drinks.

Children do go shopping you know and they go to school where their friends will introduce them to all types of "yummies" so really I think the thing is educate children with the "sometimes theory" and mums be a little imagitive when feeding your kids. Just my opinion

Sheesh!

>>The purpose of advertising is to manipulate and modify behavior<<

In much the same way as the purpose of Today Tonight or A Current Affair is to manipulate and modify our understanding of what is happening around us. A six-year-old might believe every word of it, but is that sufficient reason to ban it from being broadcast?

I run a business. I need to advertise so that people know that my product exists, what it can do for them, how much it costs and where they can buy it.

If I have an illegal product - let us say sawn-off shotguns - I am not allowed to provide the public with the above information. But if my product is legal, why on earth should you prohibit me from advertising it? What possible logic can you bring to bear that will justify such an action?

I am well aware of political pressure, and the need for politicians to maximise their feel-good quotient with the voting public. But it is this - not logic - that will drive them to use such expressions as "immoral" to describe companies going about their lawful business, and "child abuse" as a generic label for pictures of hamburgers.

>>Personally, I regard targetting any sort of advertising toward children as a form of child abuse.<<

Oh please!! If advertising Barbie dolls is a form of child abuse, where on the spectrum of human behaviour do you place beating them with a leather strap, or forcing them to do their homework?

Let us at least keep some sense of perspective in this discussion. If it is illegal to sell a product to young people, the legal responsibility for this restriction should lie with the retailer, as it has done since time immemorial.

This continuing crusade to protect us from real and imaginary harm is slowly taking away our freedom to choose how we spend our lives, and I for one resent it fiercely.

Pericles,

“I run a business. I need to advertise so that people know that my product exists, what it can do for them, how much it costs and where they can buy it.”

That’s fine: I have no problem with that kind of advertising: it’s probably essential to keeping the wheels of capitalism turning.

However, you’re not seriously claiming that that’s the intent of most junk food advertising, especially that directed toward kids, are you? I doubt there’s a kid in the whole Western world who doesn’t know by now that McDonalds products exist, what they can do for them, or where they can buy them. The purpose of such advertising is purely to boost sales by modifying the child’s consuming behaviour. When the behaviour the advertiser is trying to achieve is actually harmful to kids, this is immoral. This is why we don’t allow tobacco advertising, and alcohol advertising is supposed to be directed carefully to adults (although in reality a lot of it targets teenagers).

The Barbie doll example – well I could probably wear that, but I’m not sure that a parent who’s been exposed to years of relentless pester power would agree. I’d place it well below beating them with a leather strap, but quite a bit above making them do their homework on the child abuse scale.

I know that trying to maximize consumption is supposed to be vital to a healthy economy, and that advertising is a part of that process. My own interest in this comes from working with addicts, and from my understanding of the neurobiology of addictions, in particular the role of cueing to addictive behavior patterns (which is where junk food advertising comes in). The neurobiology of drug addictions is very closely linked to that of other types of addictions, such as gambling and overeating. I am very uncomfortable with teaching kids to consume, and to value consumption in itself, from an early age, before they have the capacity to think critically about the messages that they’re being bombarded with.

Snout, the points I am trying - and obviously failing - to make are i) that the cure is out of all proportion to the disease and ii) using over-emotive arguments in a matter as trivial as advertising is harming the fabric of our society.

>>I doubt there’s a kid in the whole Western world who doesn’t know by now that McDonalds products exist, what they can do for them, or where they can buy them. The purpose of such advertising is purely to boost sales by modifying the child’s consuming behaviour<<

You completely ignore one other key facet of capitalism: competition.

McDonalds is in daily competition with Hungry Jacks, KFC, Subway, Red Rooster and a host of other fast food possibilities - and that ignores completely the existence of non-fast-food, with which they also need to compete.

If McDonalds are prevented from bringing themselves to the public's attention, they would probably lose some market share.

But the act of prohibiting them from advertising would raise some interesting questions. Would they be the only recipients of such action, or would it also apply to.... whom else? Other fast-food outlets? Only fattening ones? What about those that sell fattening and non-fattening food?

Most importantly, who will draw the line?

There would presumably need to be a register somewhere of conforming and non-conforming food... who would decide upon it, and against what criteria?

We could find ourselves in a situation where a government minister - who just happens to be a vegetarian - makes these decisions on our behalf. A bit like a government minister - who just happens to be a catholic - making decisions on abortion policy.

Sorry, banning advertising of a legal product is not a solution.