Under the Radar: How Embedded Commercial Messages in TV and the New Media Influence Children Without their Conscious Awareness

As marketers seek new, more subtle ways to target the consumer, there has been an increase in the use of covert, interactive and multimedia forms of advertising. Even though these campaigns are largely targeted at adults, children are increasingly exposed to commercial messages embedded within TV programmes, films and video games. This practice is commonly known as brand or product placement and involves paid messages or within-context exposure, which is aimed at influencing audiences (Balasubramanian, 1991). Compared with ‘traditional’ messages on TV, this non-traditional technique results in the blurring of boundaries between advertising, entertainment and information (Gunter, Oates & Blades, 2005; Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007; Wright, Friestad & Boush, 2005). This technique removes temporal markers that have traditionally distinguished selling from entertainment and requires the viewer to become sensitive to the intent of advertisers within this context. When we reflect on children’s immersion in an increasingly commercialized media environment, key questions that emerge are what children understand about non-traditional advertising and how children are influenced by it.