Children Love Their Favorite Characters
The superpower of spokescharacters
There are a lot of children’s favorite characters on the packaging of and in the advertising for cereals, fast foods, snacks and other products. They’re known as licensed characters or “spokescharacters.” They’re a huge business because they have enormous swaying power over children’s preferences.
For example, in the following video, watch 4-year-olds choose a banana over a chocolate cupcake—because the banana bears the image of their favorite cartoon characters.
New Children Now Study:
Use of Spokescharacters
Feeds Childhood Obesity
A key finding of Children Now’s study, The Impact of Industry Self-Regulation on the Nutritional Quality of Foods Advertised on Television to Children, released on December 14, 2009, is that food marketers are increasingly using licensed characters to promote foods of the poorest nutritional quality to children. Nearly half of all food ads with popular children’s characters (49%), such as SpongeBob SquarePants, are for so-called “Whoa” products that pose the greatest risk for obesity. “Using licensed characters to sell unhealthy foods to children is an unfair practice, and has to be stopped,” said Ted Lempert, president of Children Now.
Children Now Victory Limits Use of Licensed Characters
On September 26, 2006, by a unanimous vote, the Federal Communications Commission established new rules protecting children from excessive advertising—including regulations on the use of licensed characters—and providing children with more educational television programming. The approved rules are federal regulations that must be adhered to by all digital TV broadcasters. This decision, which resulted from a six-year advocacy effort led by Children Now and the Children’s Media Policy Coalition, is one of the most critical victories for children in federal media policymaking.
Read Digital Television: Sharpening the Focus on Children, which summarizes Children Now’s work leading to the FCC ruling.
Read Children Now’s press release about the FCC ruling
Identifying & Understanding New Methods of Advertising to Children
New media technologies are developing rapidly. The internet and connected devices, such as mobile phones, enable new ways of targeting children with advertising. These include “advergames,” websites with spokescharacters and location-based advertising delivery. Identifying new forms of advertising to children and understanding their impact is the first step toward enacting the media policies that are needed to cover children’s best interests in the digital age.
Children Now’s extensive work in this area is detailed in the Regulating Interactive Advertising to Children section of this website.
Giving Children A Voice
In June 2008, Children Now joined public health, media and child advocacy groups to urge FCC action on product placement and integration targeting children.