Advertising is Creating Materialistic Consumers :: Business Ethics

American offspring exemplify a large point for the advertising market. Advertising to American youth means big business and lucrative profits for suppliers of products and services. American children even up a dynamic retail market, influencing an estimated $500 billion in get along retail spending (Marketing to children 2009). Youth argon impressionable, they will establish some(prenominal) advertisements and conclude they want or need many of the publicise products and services. The result is buy and the collecting of inanimate objects, in most cases many of them by our youth. Through constant global advertising, extreme purchasing and the plenteous accumulation of objects, our youth are turning into shopaholics or consumer addicts and they are adopting mercantile value. In other words, materialistic values are being force upon our youth in advertisements by encouraging or persuading consistent purchasing of products and services. Since advertising is virtually all around us, materialism can lead astray at a very young age. According to Goldberg and Gorn (1978), Materialistic values are correlated to exposure to marketing for children as young as preschoolers (p. 22). The younger the better in the advertisers yes as they see dollar signs. If you target them young, you can mold them like clay and the materialism will reach and expand over time.Keep in mind youth are easy prey, and reaching them as a demographic is also a simple accomplishment. Television commercials, magazines and the internet are the some of the more frequent methods in which to reach Americas youth. They are a captive audience, they spend countless hours watching television and surfing on the internet. It is a shame our technological advances over the centuries have actually turned against our youth, at least when it comes to non-censored advertising. It should be no surprise they are a likely target and potentially big money makers.