Hi! Was wondering if someone could take a look at my oral. I feel as though I haven't stated my contention clearly? A mark out of 10 would also be appreciated! thanks
From TV commercials to online games, a new marketing approach from large corporations is ‘advergaming’, where games made by advertisers, promote whatever brand name or product to young children, by integrating it into the game. Though seemingly harmless, these advergames certainly raise a good deal of concern. The major one being promoting all the wrong ideas to children, such as junk food.
The reality is that kids these days live a very sedentary lifestyle with lack of exercise and poor nutrition. The constant exposure and marketing of junk food through online games and mobile phone apps –which happens to be free to download– subconsciously, triggers the craving and desire for said product. Children are very easily influenced, and fast food chains exploit this. Kids can’t distinguish the difference between a game and advertisement. They don’t understand the intent of the persuasive messages through these games and at the end of the day, the main focus of these ‘advergames’ is to create some form of association between the kids and the product, where the kids learn the logo, be able to identify it at the store and ultimately consume more of it.
Aside from subtly brainwashing children, the fact is, these kids will continually be engaged over a longer time period –possibly hours– than your typical 30 second ad, making it addictive as well as effective in reinforcing and exposing their young minds to the product. Unsurprisingly these games also offer certain discounts and even freebies, upon completion of particular goals within the game. KFC Snack in the Face App provides several incentives of heavily discounted items, with the purchase of another. In order to receive free food, harder tasks must be completed. Now who doesn’t love free food? Now how about winning free food, by simply playing a game? In the eyes of a kid, nothing could probably get any better than that. With ‘advergames’ holding more incentives for young children to play, it would mean constant exposure to the product. Kids driven by their desires for the free food coupons will spend endless hours to complete the tasks. These endless hours playing these ‘advergames’ creates a psychological impact, which unfortunately links positives emotions to junk food.
Following the release of the ‘Hungry Jacks Makes It Better’ app, doctors have shown concern over seeing children and teens becoming addicted to it. One Sydney dietician, expressed his concerns over an overly obese 15 year old patient, using the app every single day, to get discounted and even free food. The patient had also used the same voucher multiple times during a single visit, sharing them with his friends, as staff forgets to reset them, once redeemed. Ultimately, not only is he doing himself no good through the continuous consumption of junk food, but is also affecting those he shares those vouchers with, which in a sense creates a ripple effect of junk food consumption. We’re not talking about one child, but rather a whole group of children that has unknowingly being targeted en masse.
Another aspect of these ‘rewards’ from these ‘advergames’ is the time limit, through which these vouchers must be redeemed before expiration. One of the many factors that have played a role in child obesity is overconsumption of food, and large fast food chains, through various promotions push overconsumption, between very short periods of time. Notice how this does not only apply with –in this case, coupons and vouchers in the advergames– but also through special promotions fast food chains have such as a ‘limited time only’ burger. By purposely placing a time limit for a particular burger or product, consumers are more likely to go back for more in that short period of time. It places them in this mindset where they think ‘I have to get the most I can, while it’s available’, leading to overconsumption of the product. ‘Advergames’ operate in the exact same way. For example, the KFC Snack! In The Face coupons generally have a 7 day offer before it expires, whilst other prizes such as a free snack box will expire in within 2 days. Of course, this then pushes the kids to try and redeem possibly all of their vouchers before they expire, so what does it do? It forces over consumption. Within that one week, children will find themselves repeatedly making several trips to their nearest KFC, and within that one week, majority of them will be consuming junk food nearly every single day.
Aside from the various health problems that may arise due to promotion of junk food consumption by advergames, a long term ripple effect of which we may not think about is the economic costs. There is a significant healthcare cost associated to treating obesity and its direct consequences, with the wellbeing annual costs of obesity –including lost of productivity– costing more than a staggering $50 billion dollars. Economically, these health problems impose heavy burdens upon not only governments, but families as well. Hundreds and millions of dollars are spent by Australians each year on weight management programs and therapies, as well as medicinal treatments for obesity related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes which has been highly prevalent amongst children.
Through the overconsumption from the push of ‘advergames’, obesity in children is more likely to persist into adulthood, with more than a 50% chance of being overweight adults. Increase in childhood obesity would mean the likelihood of an increase in obese adults in the future. Logically, this would mean the government would have to increase expenditure in the health sector. However, this would also mean that the Australian economy would not be at its productive capacity, hence loss in levels of productivity. Many people who are obese are often not employed, due to various health concerns, or possibly due to the result of social discrimination in the workforce. What this would ultimately mean for the government is a reduction in tax revenue, with a smaller labour force reducing national output. Yet at the same time, it could possibly mean greater government outlays such as various health programs or facilities dealing with obese patients, as well as welfare for those unemployed as a direct consequence of health problems.
Of course, as we all know, welfare is not an exactly adequate source of income, and many families will find themselves struggling. Ironically despite the government providing support to those unemployed because of health problems, it may just instead indirectly increase the level of health concerns to those already suffering. Reason being, is that eating healthy is not cheap. Eating healthy is quite expensive when compared to fast food. With the amount of income available, it’ll be very difficult to constantly feed a whole family healthy meals. Instead, they would turn to the cheaper products, which most of the time are heavily processed food.
One other concern of ‘advergames’ is regarding the manipulation of young minds, conveying across the wrong messages to young children. Children lack the cognitive capacity to comprehend the persuasive attempts that advertisements make. Most often, they would accept the advertisements without questioning its ulterior motives. With that being said, the high level of deception and misleading information will confuse the young minds, creating the wrong concept and ideas. The manipulative nature of the ‘advergames’ can also stimulate a psychological impact, where kids are led to believe that drinking certain soft drinks will enable them to achieve great sporting achievements, or perhaps consuming junk food will make them strong and brave. Psychologists are even employed to manipulate ads to children. Often, the ethics of ‘advergames’ are questioned and criticised for the unethical approach taken by advertisement companies, such as the veracity of the message being conveyed across.
Generally most of the time, these messages are not 100% accurate or true. The inclusive of selective information, where consumers lack perfect knowledge becomes dishonest, for example by implying the only way to succeed, is to purchase a particular brand, without providing pros and cons of both items. Consumers who don’t know any better become targeted, especially in regards to young children. Does it become morally correct for companies to knowingly deceive innocent children? Is it ethical for these companies to gain billions of profit at the expense of children? No, of course it’s not. Companies, fast food chains and whatever large corporation out there, will solely act according to what is in their best interest, most often maximising profits. Conflicting and deceptive information coupled with young and easily persuaded minds of children, becomes very dangerous. It is unjust as well as unfair, that innocent young children in a sense become ‘sacrifices’ where they are put on the line for the benefit of these multimillion dollar corporations.
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