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CONTENTS OF ADVERTISING IN CHILDREN TELEVISION SHOWS
Nurist Surayya Ulfa Department of Communication, Diponegoro University
nurist.surayyaundip.ac.id
This study is a content analysis of advertisings aired at several television children programs in Indonesia. Based on the analysis of 1.442 ads, it is found that the duration of ads are
generally about 4-5 minutes, with 10-15 advertisings aired. While in prime time show, the duration is increasing to 7-8 minutes and aired 24-27 ads. The proportion of ads is 50
children products. Meanwhile, 83 ads is emotional advertising that contains only 1-2 informations and only 3 ads is informative of which contains 4-5 informations.
Keyword: information contents, advertising, children television programs
1. Background of The Study
Advertisings targeted to children are nowdays increasing compared to those in the past decades. In
Amerika, most children watched nearly 20.000 ads a year in the 1970‘s Adler et al, 1970, became 30.000 ads per year in the early
1980‘s Condry, Bence Scheibe,1988 and then roughly 40.000 ads per year in the beginning of 1990‘s Kunkel Gantz, 1992. In
1999, Comstock and Scherer estimated children were exposed to about 60.000 ads in a year. While in UK, each children exposed to 18.000 television ads carvel, 2000 and in China was
16.000 ads per year Chan McNeal, 2004. For the meantime, there were only limited data about children exposure to advertising in Indonesia that can be collected. Previous research
showed children spent 1-5 hours a day to watch tv in the weekdays. Even some 23 children watched at a longer time Ulfa, 2013. Other research found that during tv viewing, some 5-8
years old childrens kept staring at the TV when the advertising put on air between the show, however children above 8 years old had shifted theirs attention when the ads aired. Calvert,
2008: 217. Nevertheless, study in Indonesia found 30,5 children age 6-12 years old were remain watching tv during ads show and 9,5 were doing some other activities when ads
aired Ulfa, 2013. Of course the kids and adults do not always pay attention to the television screen when the ad aired, but in practice, the audience had the opportunity to see
the ads on all the events they watch.
The high exposure of tv ads to children bring about some concerns from many parties, especially since the ads were assessed exploit children. The exploitation is often referred with
emotional language ‖
seducers
‖ referring to the marketer and ‖
innocents
‖ referring to children. In this context, they are viewed negatively by the criticism that the ads could
persuade children to buy products they do not need and spend money they may not have Young, 1990. Advertising are also put a lot of emphasis on ownership or inspire a certain
lifestyle Hahlo, 1999. In addition, many studies have found negative effects of advertising on children include;
children‘s health and obesity, images of the ideal body, stereotypes, images of race and ethnicity, and the vision of materialism and happiness MccDermott,
hastings, Stead, Carrian harris, 2008. Children are considered vulnerable to advertising because they do not really
understand about the intentions of the ads and the process of making an ads. At younger age, children‘s consumption capabilities and persuasive information processing are still
underdeveloped that resulted in the children‘s meaning making regarding what is shown in
the advertisings Bilmolt Tammo, H.A Claassen Wilma, 1998. Those limited capabilities often caused them, at a certain age, easy to accept, persuaded, and perceived wrong
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interpretation of advertising messages Oates, Blades, Gunter, . Don, 2003. Moreover, advertising commonly uses techniques to create magnitude and exaggerate images that offer
wrong impressions of the product. As follows, children are ever more difficult to consider the size, image, taste or shape of the actual products Gunter, Barrie, Oades, Caroline Blades,
Mark. 2005. The findings of a previous study showed that 83.5 of children aged 6-12 years have been able to distinguish ads from other content of tv shows; and 74 could mention
what products are advertised. However, 60.5 of children couldn‘t mention the purpose of advertising, 62.5 couldn‘t rule out peripheral messages of ads, and 67 did not understand
the intention behind the advertising Ulfa, 2013. Children need explanations and sufficient information to have a good comprehension
of advertising and become less vulnerable from potential negative effects of ads. Hence, this paper intends to describe the advertising profile and information contents of Indonesian
television advertisements that aired on the child tv program.
2. Theoretical Framework
