Survey: Advertising to Kids

The Advertising to Kids survey was conducted to better understand how people feel about marketing to children.

Advertisers in the U.S. spend an estimated than $3 billion every year marketing products to children, which is projected to rise to $21.1 billion by 2031(6). This practice continues despite the fact that researchers and legal scholars alike – including the American Psychological Association – concur that advertising to young children is misleading and unfair.(2,3) Children below the age of 8 years have underdeveloped cognitive skills, and thus are unable to distinguish biased advertising messages from fact.(3-5)

The NFEC seeks to gain a deeper knowledge about factors – like advertising to kids – that can affect a child’s future state of financial wellness. The research can give organizations data to effectively support early childhood development and influence young people’s personal finance skill sets.

This unfair practice of targeting young children with marketing inspired the National Financial Educators Council (NFEC) to conduct a survey of American adults to clarify where they stand on the issue. The Advertising to Kids survey, conducted from October 21st to 29th, asked 2,696 citizens across the US to answer three questions: whether they thought companies should advertise to kids under 8; whether they thought junk food companies should market to young children; and whether they believed marketing to young children was unethical.