Capturing the Commercial World of Children: The Feasibility of Wearable Cameras to Assess Marketing Exposure

There is widespread concern about the implications of increased targeting of marketing to children. However, despite the ubiquitous presence of marketing in children's environments, children's actual exposure to the full range of marketing across all media and in multiple settings remains unknown. This article reports on an innovative method of analysis, using data from wearable automated cameras, to objectively document children's marketing exposure across and within settings. Results show children were exposed to an average of 638 marketing encounters per day. The most common form of marketing exposure was to brand labeling, and marketing for food and beverages the dominant product category. This article provides an objective observation of the commercial world of children in a wide range of settings, presenting unique insights and a new analysis method for documenting children's environmental advertising exposure to inform policy decisions about the ethics and practices of marketing to children.