You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
Advertising campaigns on TV that are targeted at children should be banned. To what extent to you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer
We live in a world which is full of advertisement and these adverts are consciously and subconsciously shaping our purchasing habits. Adverts that target children, be it on TV, billboards or the internet, should be completely banned as their marketing strategies to target children are totally unethical and have detrimental effects on our young generation.
In the first place, children are not decision makers and not matured enough to differentiate quality products from low-grade ones. Adverts that are primarily intended for young fail to comply with the very fundamental norm of ethical advertising – to inform people. For instance, many chocolate companies make advertisements to allure children and their adverts have more fantasy than facts. Though they know that parents would be the potential purchaser, they try to use the sentiments of children and their desires to trap parents to buy their products. Since this is quite obvious that advertisements made for children have an immoral and unacceptable objective, these adverts should not be allowed to be shown on mass media.
Furthermore, children these days watch TV more than ever before. This is why allowing fabricated and immoral adverts would expose them to a pseudo-real world where they would be brainwashed. Childhood is the most precious time for the proper psychological development and that is why adverts that target children are detrimental to their cognitive development.
To conclude, all campaigns and adverts that target children have only one thing common – mislead the young, allure them and force their parents to purchase products that they otherwise would not have purchased. Those unethical and heinous advertisement must be prohibited on TV by all means.