Is advertising becoming child's play in China?

Citation

Liu, C. (2007), "Is advertising becoming child's play in China?", Young Consumers, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/yc.2007.32108bab.004

Is advertising becoming child's play in China?

Is advertising becoming child’s play in China?

Candice Liu, Robin Teow and Belinda Tang are based at Lehman, Lee & Xu.

China has experienced remarkable economic growth over the last 25 years or so. It has surpassed France and Britain to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, after the USA, Japan and Germany. Even though China is taking urgent measures to prevent possible economic meltdown, most Chinese and international observers expect China’s gross domestic product (GDP) to continue its strong growth over the next five to ten years. According to Zhang Xiaoji, a senior researcher at the State Council Development Research Centre, China’s GDP will reach US$4.7 trillion or US$3,200 per capita by 2020. That this growth is taking place in an economy that is shifting from one that is centrally planned to one that is market-driven and in a country with the world’s largest population is a phenomenon that the business community around the globe cannot afford to ignore.

Along with China’s impressive economic progress, the per capita income of urban and rural residents grew by annual averages of 9.2 percent and 5.2 percent respectively from 2001 to 2005. Its days of poverty are gradually moving towards history. To compete for the attention and buying power of its growing number of consumers and as a result of the continuing evolution of its market, both foreign and local companies are devising more aggressive advertising strategies in China. According to a recent finding by Beijing-based CTR Market Research, the leading market and media research company in China, China’s advertising expenditure in 2006 totaled RMB287.5 billion (US$38.3 billion), up 18 percent from the year before, fueled largely by a newly competitive banking sector and a number of major sports events. China is now neck and neck with the UK as the world’s third-largest ad market, after the USA and Japan.

Global advertisers hand over hundreds and billions of dollars a year manipulating people so as to create new wants in them. In the process, they recognize the huge potential of the international children’s market since young children are especially vulnerable to this sort of manipulation and they are easy targets for “brain washing”. Children in China, in particular, are increasingly the “prey” of marketing and advertising because of the amount of money they spend themselves, the influence they have on their parents’ purchasing decisions (the nag factor) and because of the money they will spend when they grow up (Aidman, 1995; France, 1996). Advertisers acknowledge that brand loyalties and consumer habits shaped when children are young will be carried through to adulthood. There are about 274 million children under 14 years of age in China in 2006, accounting for approximately 21 percent of the total population. Despite the one child policy instituted by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to limit communist China’s population growth, there are still approximately 23 million babies born each year, or roughly the population of Malaysia. These only children are often described as “little emperors or empresses,” because they are the main focus of their parents and grandparents and receive virtually anything they want. In just the big cities of China, they are given more than $3 billion annually from their parents to spend as they wish, and more importantly, they determine approximately 68 percent of their parents’ spending, perhaps the highest rate of influence in the world. Hence, it is hardly surprising that there is a surge in number of advertisers who are eager to connect with hundreds and millions of young consumers in China to get a portion of their economic influence.

At the same time, public policy makers, parents and marketers have expressed grave concern about the right to advertise products and services to children. There are questions about the ability of children to comprehend advertising and its persuasive intent and not be deceived and manipulated by it. They generally think that advertising is informative, truthful, and entertaining (Ward et al., 1977). Furthermore, some experts have contended that, and rightfully so, it is not so much that children do not yet possess the power of perception to gauge such things sensibly – many adults, when push comes to shove, never acquire that ability. It is more a sentiment that childhood is a precious time that ought not to be encroached upon and that the child’s innocence should not be exploited. Advertising, in a nutshell, is viewed as a form of pollution because advertisements can twist their view of the world.

To keep advertisers in check, the Chinese government has put in place rigorous controls to regulate advertising directed to children.

Legal protection of children in advertisements

In China, the protection of minors and children are clearly stipulated and emphasized in various laws and regulations on advertising and marketing, which are inclusive of Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors (the “Minors Protection Law”), Advertisement Law of the People’s Republic of China (the “Advertisement Law”), regulations promulgated by State Administration of Industry and Commerce and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and other provisions issued by local governments. These laws and regulations provide for systematic and comprehensive protection of minors and children in respect of the following aspects.

1. Principles of protection

In 1991, the “Minors Protection Law”, a law specially enacted to protect and pursue the protection of minors and children, was promulgated by the State Council of PRC. In this law, it is provided that the state shall encourage entities of press, publication, information industry, broadcasting, film and television, art and literature, as well as writers, artists, scientists and other citizens to create or provide works conducive to the healthy growth of minors; the state shall render support to the publishing, production and dissemination of books, newspapers, magazines, audio and video products, electronic publications, and network information specially catering to minors. This law imposes all relevant mass media authorities and operators the responsibility to provide minors and children with high quality and healthy advertisements.

Accordingly, in response to the Minors Protection Law, the Advertisement Law also emphasizes that no advertisement in any mass media may impair the physical and mental health of the minors.

The above two laws have laid the foundation for protection of minors and children.

2. Executive legal requirements

To ensure the protection of minors and children, the PRC legislation system provides a pre-declaration and examination procedure and after-control procedure, which are carried out by State Administration of Industry and Commerce.

As to the pre-declaration and examination procedure, any advertisements for such commodities as pharmaceuticals, medical apparatus and instruments, agricultural chemicals or veterinary drugs published by means of mass media shall be subject to examination. The relevant administrative authorities must examine, prior to their issuance, the contents of the advertisements; no such advertisement may be published without examination and approval. In particular, the image of minors and children are not allowed to appear in advertisements for tobacco and alcohol.

As to the after-control procedure, the administrative authorities have the right to cancel and/or stop the publication of any advertisement at any time even after the approval is obtained. Furthermore, advertisements involving sex and violence are not allowed on minors’ channels or during the time that the majority of minors and children might watch.

Samples of children’s advertisements and reviewing standards in China

Article 42 of the Advertisement Reviewing Standard issued by the Administration of Industry and Commerce elaborates detailed standards regarding childrens’ advertisements that shall not be approved for release. However, there are still examples of childrens’ advertisements that have failed the standard but are still being released to the market. Samples of what are regarded as a bad children’s advertisement are given as follows:

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  Advertisements that will do harm to the child’s physical and mental well being, and degrade moral standards. Examples of such advertisements are the child crying or threatening the parents to purchase certain gifts for him or her. Some even claim “I am the little King” (a nickname for the only child in one big family arising from China’s one child policy).

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  Advertisements that will put pressure to buy on to the parents. For example, in one child’s drink television advertisement, the child who got the drink proudly claimed himself as the “most loved child by the parents”. This is a typical example of putting purchasing pressure on to the parents.

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  Advertisements that will negatively influence the child’s respect for the elderly and friendliness to others. One example shows that eating certain good foods will enable the child to win peer approval in a boxing game is an example of influencing the child’s friendliness to others.

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  Advertisments that use child models to perform certain acts that are beyond the average child’s behavioral ability or acts that should not be done by the child alone (Figure 1).

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  Advertisments whose description or illustration is beyond the child’s judgment ability that may easily deceive them or lead to misunderstanding. Some claim that using a certain study aid machine can make you score 100 in every subject. Certain cracker advertisements claimed that eating the cracker can increase the child’s IQ.

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  Advertisements that use the role of teacher, child’s educator, child story writer, or child movie star, or their endorsement. One child’s toothpaste advertisement uses a teacher role to persuade children in the classroom that they shall all buy such toothpaste because she has been using this brand toothpaste all her life.

Attention has already been given to child advertising in China and review standards already exist. There is still heated debate and argument going on in the Chinese legislature, however, in the field of education and in media circles that more stringent and explicit examination standards shall be created in the near future to promote the Chinese young consumer’s wellbeing in the rapidly growing commercial development of this country.

Figure 1

Acknowledgements

Published in conjunction with the Global Advertising Lawyers’ Alliance (www.gala-market-law.com). GALA is an alliance of lawyers located throughout the world.