IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v158y2019i3d10.1007_s10551-017-3742-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Child Advertising Inherently Unfair?

Author

Listed:
  • David Rowthorn

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

Child advertising is routinely accused of being inherently unfair. This is normally based on the claim that younger children do not understand advertising’s selling intent, a claim that is well supported by the available evidence. But the argumentation that gets us from this claim to inherent unfairness has been largely ignored. This article addresses this gap in the literature by considering two accounts of fairness as candidates for understanding child advertising: the process-exclusive account and the inclusive account. The article argues for the rejection of the process-exclusive account (where the process is all that matters) on the basis that it ends up condemning acceptable, non-commercial persuasion. The article then examines the candidates for the negative outcome of child advertising that is required for unfairness on the inclusive account. It concludes that the evidence for each being inherent to child advertising is currently insufficient to support the conclusion that child advertising is inherently unfair.

Suggested Citation

  • David Rowthorn, 2019. "Is Child Advertising Inherently Unfair?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 603-615, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3742-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3742-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3742-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-017-3742-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brenkert, George G., 1998. "Marketing and the Vulnerable," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(S1), pages 7-20, January.
    2. Pechmann, Cornelia & Knight, Susan J, 2002. "An Experimental Investigation of the Joint Effects of Advertising and Peers on Adolescents' Beliefs and Intentions about Cigarette Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(1), pages 5-19, June.
    3. Richins, Marsha L & Dawson, Scott, 1992. "A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and Its Measurement: Scale Development and Validation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 19(3), pages 303-316, December.
    4. Carter, Owen B.J. & Patterson, Lisa J. & Donovan, Robert J. & Ewing, Michael T. & Roberts, Clare M., 2011. "Children's understanding of the selling versus persuasive intent of junk food advertising: Implications for regulation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 962-968, March.
    5. John, Deborah Roedder, 1999. "Consumer Socialization of Children: A Retrospective Look at Twenty-Five Years of Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 26(3), pages 183-213, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julia Rötzmeier-Keuper, 2020. "Consumer Vulnerability: Overview And Synthesis Of The Current State Of Knowledge And Future Service-Related Research Directions," Working Papers Dissertations 65, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yanping Gong & Xiuyuan Tang & Julan Xie & Long Zhang, 2022. "Exploring the Nexus Between Work-to-Family Conflict, Material Rewards Parenting and Adolescent Materialism: Evidence from Chinese Dual-Career Families," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 593-607, March.
    2. Zsótér, Boglárka & Nagy, Péter, 2012. "Our Everyday Emotions and Finances – The role money-related attitudes and materialistic orienta-tion play in developing financial culture," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 57(3), pages 286-297.
    3. Heleen van der Meulen & Rinaldo Kühne & Suzanna J. Opree, 2018. "Validating the Material Values Scale for Children (MVS-c) for Use in Early Childhood," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(4), pages 1201-1216, August.
    4. Elodie Gentina & L. J. Shrum & Tina M. Lowrey & Scott J. Vitell & Gregory M. Rose, 2018. "An Integrative Model of the Influence of Parental and Peer Support on Consumer Ethical Beliefs: The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem, Power, and Materialism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(4), pages 1173-1186, July.
    5. Elodie Gentina & Thomas Li-Ping Tang & Qinxuan Gu, 2017. "Does Bad Company Corrupt Good Morals? Social Bonding and Academic Cheating among French and Chinese Teens," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 639-667, December.
    6. Landwehr, Stefanie C. & Hartmann, Monika, 2020. "Industry self-regulation of food advertisement to children: Compliance versus effectiveness of the EU Pledge," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    7. Capella, Michael L. & Webster, Cynthia & Kinard, Brian R., 2011. "A review of the effect of cigarette advertising," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 269-279.
    8. Tina Böhme & Laura S. Stanszus & Sonja M. Geiger & Daniel Fischer & Ulf Schrader, 2018. "Mindfulness Training at School: A Way to Engage Adolescents with Sustainable Consumption?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-22, October.
    9. Rares MOCANU, 2013. "Brand Image as a Function of Self-Image and Self-Brand Connection," Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy, College of Management, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 1(3), pages 387-408, December.
    10. Michaela Jackson & Paul Harrison & Boyd Swinburn & Mark Lawrence, 2015. "Marketing ethics in context: the promotion of unhealthy foods and beverages to children," Chapters, in: Handbook on Ethics and Marketing, chapter 17, pages 354-386, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Emine Öztürk, 2021. "The Comparision of Classical Ethical Theories in Ancient Greece Philosophy and Islamic Philosophy: The Example of Aristotle and Ibn Miskavayh, Tusi and Kinalizade," European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 6, January -.
    12. Clinton Gudmunson & Sharon Danes, 2011. "Family Financial Socialization: Theory and Critical Review," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 644-667, December.
    13. Michael Gutter & Zeynep Copur & Selena Garrison, 2009. "Which Students Are More Likely to Experience Financial Socialization Opportunities? Exploring the Relationship between Financial Behaviors and Financial Well-Being of College Students," NFI Working Papers 2009-WP-07, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    14. Gil, Luciana A. & Kwon, Kyoung-Nan & Good, Linda K. & Johnson, Lester W., 2012. "Impact of self on attitudes toward luxury brands among teens," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 1425-1433.
    15. Juan Francisco Dávila & Mònica Casabayó & Jatinder Jit Singh, 2017. "A World beyond Family: How External Factors Impact the Level of Materialism in Children," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 162-182, March.
    16. F. Ziesemer & A. Hüttel & I. Balderjahn, 2021. "Young People as Drivers or Inhibitors of the Sustainability Movement: The Case of Anti-Consumption," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 427-453, September.
    17. Küper, Inken & Edinger-Schons, Laura Marie, 2020. "Is sharing up for sale? Monetary exchanges in the sharing economy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 223-234.
    18. Hota, Monali & Bartsch, Fabian, 2019. "Consumer socialization in childhood and adolescence: Impact of psychological development and family structure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 11-20.
    19. Marianela Denegri & María Baeza & Natalia Salinas-Oñate & Verónica Peñaloza & Horacio Miranda & Ligia Orellana, 2014. "Materialism in Pedagogy Students in Chile," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(2), pages 505-521, June.
    20. Suresh Malodia & Alka Singh Bhatt, 2019. "Why Should I Switch Off: Understanding the Barriers to Sustainable Consumption?," Vision, , vol. 23(2), pages 134-143, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3742-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.