Kids advertising overview:
- Who: The Federal Trade Commission released a paper on recommendations to prevent children from harm caused by online advertising.
- Why: The FTC recommendations include clearly distinguishing between advertising and entertainment, especially in immersive kids’ games.
- Where: The kids advertising recommendations come from the FTC’s Washington, D.C., office.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released recommendations for children’s entertainment advertising, including highlighting the need to distinguish between advertising and entertainment and avoiding blurred advertising, which crosses the line between the two.
“We now live in a world where kids spend many hours a day online, often in immersive environments where advertising and content are deliberately difficult to distinguish,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The serious concerns highlighted through our workshop make clear that the best way to protect children from the harms of blurred advertising is to not blur advertising.”
The kids entertainment recommendations pointed out that children have a difficult time figuring out what is advertising and what isn’t online and company’s intentionally hide advertising as content.
FTC recommends five ways to reduce harm in kids’ advertising
The FTC made five recommendations for limiting the harm of kids advertising, including avoiding blurred advertising, prominently displaying disclosures, creating icons to highlight advertising, educating families and stakeholders on the risks and how digital advertising works along with creating policies, tools and controls related to blurred kids advertising.
“Blurred advertising allows marketers to disguise advertising, and younger consumers may not be able to avoid it or evaluate it sufficiently given their focus on the content, the staff paper noted,” the FTC recommendation says. “In addition, children may be more likely to trust such messaging, particularly if it comes from a trusted source such as a social media influencer or an avatar they have befriended in a game.”
The FTC said that no individual tactic can be effective on its own, and it takes a combination of efforts to protect children from blurred advertising. Companies that use blurred advertising can be held accountable through the FTC Act if their conduct is deceptive or unfair to children.
In other advertising-related news, a review from the Better Business Bureau’s Children’s Advertising Review Unit found Roblox does not properly disclose advertising in its games and from its influencers to children under 13.
Do you think children need to be protected from advertising? Let us know in the comments.
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