The main purpose of advertisements is to persuade the audience about a product and to instill in the audience to keep purchasing their product. Advertisement plays an important role in society because it influence the minds of young children. In today's society, more children are watching more television, thus increasing the amount of advertisement that they see. Advertisers tend to target children because they are more vulnerable and easier to persuade. Between the ages of 2 and 11 years old, children see more than 25,000 advertisement a year on television (Levin). Advertisers tend to promote sugary sweets, soda, ice cream, pizza, and other kinds of unhealthy snacks, as well as name brand clothing items, and toys. Flashy magazines and billboards makes children wants to buy on impulse. Television advertise dangerous stunts, which influence children to do the same, which often ends with sometimes fatal results. There are five main negative effects advertisements have on children.
Advertisements have a negative effect on children behavior. When a child sees a commercial that is advertising a certain toy that they want, they want it immediately. When they do not get that product, they tend to behave rudely to their parents. It's the advertiser's job to encourage the child that they need the product, so that they could persuade their parents to purchase the product shown in the ad. When they are refused by their parents to purchase the product they tend to get very upset and sometimes act out in a temper tantrum. The average child sees more than 20,000 commercials each year. More than 60% of commercials promote sugared cereal, candy, fatty food, and toys "(Impact of media us.)." Advertisers spend billions a year to promote food products and restaurants. Of the estimated 20,000 ads young children see a year, most of them are food, and the majority are sugary, high-calorie snacks. Nowadays, most food advertisement are using toys to attract most children.