Americans are known to be capital-makers and risk-takers. But with advertisements that seemingly take advantage of the youth, has the business industry taken it too far?

   More than 40,000 ads on T.V. alone are viewed by teens each year. Advertisers spend more than $12 billion per year to reach the youth market. With money to blow and a growing hunger for the newest “luxury” items, teens are often the targets of advertisements. Not only that, but teens are thought of as the adult consumers of the future. Striving to have the newest electronics, clothing, and other overly advertised items, this demographic spends an estimate of $258.7 billion on products annually.

   One of the business advertising techniques used to appeal to teens is the bandwagon effect, which implies that the rest of one’s peers are doing it so they should too. Some advertisers hire celebrities to promote their product, while others use the Cool Factor, arguing that only a fool would not purchase the product.

   Not only has the business industry tried to rob teens, it has decided to take advantage of young children as well. What is scary about this is that children are the most vulnerable group of buyers.

   According to Perri Klass author of the New York Times article, How Advertising Targets Our Children, she states “I grew up in the era of unfettered television advertisements for tobacco. I remember all the jingles — but I also remember the welcome cynicism of Mad Magazine parodies in which gravestones discussed the great taste of cigarettes and Hitler endorsed them as terrific mass murderers.”

The sickening way that tobacco advertisers try to reach kids include having 30 percent of tobacco ads appear near toy or candy sections of a store; 15 percent of stores selling tobacco were located within 1,000 feet of a school; additionally, the colorful packaging of tobacco products is likely designed with the aim of appealing to children. Approximately, $10.5 billion is spent on tobacco marketing.

Tobacco marketing spends approximately $1 million every hour to market products that are responsible for the death of about 1 in 10 adults worldwide every single year!

   Not only has the advertising industry affected children and teens, but it has affected them in their lifestyles as well. Children and teens need to be alerted and notified of the danger facing them when it comes to advertisements. Schools need to promote informative passages to help teens be aware of what waits for them in the marketing world, and children need to be taught by their parents to be aware and not fall in these traps the marking industry has created.