Ads Targeting Children Should Not Be Allowed During Prime Time | Band 9 IELTS Essay Sample

One of the prime times for advertising on TV is when children get back from school. Some people think that advertisements aimed at children should not be allowed. What is your opinion?

Here is a band 9 IELTS essay on this topic. Need help with writing? Get your writing samples corrected by me. 

Band 9 IELTS Essay Sample

Advertisements play a major role in influencing the buying decisions of customers. Over the years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of ads targeting children because advertisers are aware that kids are the centre of nuclear families. Most of these ads are aired in the evenings when children are back from school and sitting in front of the television. Some people opine that commercials targeting young kids should be banned. I agree with this view to a great extent because in my opinion excessively promotional ads have a devastating effect on children.

First of all, children are easily manipulated by the adverts which take them to the virtual world and coax them to purchase products that are not always worth their money. For instance, toys of the Star Wars series are very popular among teenagers and sales of these toys are very high in the market. Secondly, the advertisements are delivered in such a way that children start pestering their parents to buy those products. The fast food chain McDonald’s employs this strategy. Their ads attract more and more teenagers to eat fast food which is not good for health because it contains high levels of fats and cholesterol which cause obesity and diabetes in children.

Another reason to restrict ads is that they may even put the lives of children at risk. Children often imitate the dangerous stunts performed by celebrities in commercials and often lose their life or cause themselves serious injuries because they are not aware of the consequences.

On the other hand, not all ads are bad. Actually, some of them promote good habits in children. For example, some ads encourage children to brush their teeth twice a day and wash their hands frequently. Such ads develop healthy habits in children and hence they should be aired during prime time.

To summarize, most ads targeting children are overly promotional and have a negative impact on children. Hence the government must ensure that they are not aired during prime time. However, ads promoting good habits and social commitment must be shown in the evenings when most children are in front of the television.

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Manjusha Nambiar

Hi, I'm Manjusha. This is my blog where I give IELTS preparation tips.

5 Responses

  1. Sunita says:

    Advertisement mainly deals with the publicity and promotion of the various products. It mainly attracts the different types of audience depending upon its messages that it carries. It is the main strategy tools to promote the use of different product and to inform people about new things. There are different audiences that has been targeted by advertisement. Advertisement displays its messages targeting the children group to old group. It shows us the choice to select right product and to give lessons on different products.
    As on mentioned scenario, usually children will have leisure time after they get back to school. Most of them have a habit of watching TV at that time. Advertisment on prime time has both types of effect on children’s psychology. It is said that Children is always as keen as mustard to learn new things around them. Therefore, they usually learn new ideas from different kinds of advertisement it shows. like the advertisement of lifebuoy soap is very much informative for children. They learn to wash hand properly. Thus, it has good impact on children’s hygiene. On the other hand, some advertisement provides them negative lesson. They get inspired from different superheroes. They insist their parents to buy the same clothes like that of superheroes and act like them. It make them to think themselves as heroes and to act like them. Sometimes it lead them to do certain works beyond their imagination. It will hamper on children’s psychology. Hence, some parents think that these kinds of advertisement should be prohibited to display.
    However, the given statement has some meaning. But it depends on types of advertisement. Initially the production team of advertisement has to do pre-assessment on it for its feasibility to show on TV. The source and lesson has to be determined first. Then only it will create an environment to learn new innovative things from advertisement. So that children should not have to run away from Television.

  2. Hamid says:

    Broadcasting a wide range of adverts from TV is one of the popular marketing
    strategies for the goods; children are one of the potential targets of these advertising programs.
    Some parents are worried about the negative consequences of these adverts on children and
    believe the TV producers have to stop showing them especially after school time. In my opinion, not all the
    adverts would affect children negatively, and there are also some useful programs which
    are beneficial for both children and parents.

    The people who are concerned about broadcasting the children adverts might think
    the colorful tempting goods can occupy all the thoughts of children,
    leaving no room for their studies and school works. In other words,
    overthinking about how to acquire the merchandise, children would be distracted
    from their primary job. Furthermore, insisting on buying the advertised products,
    children may confront their parents or develop spoiled behaviour to get the
    desired item that can be another negative point of showing the advert programs after school time.

    On the other hand, not all the advertisements would have adverse effects on children.
    There are numerous products which are designed and customized particularly for the
    younger generation and they are aimed to enhance the skills and abilities of children.
    Therefore, it is beneficial to allow children to watch these kinds of commercial programs in their free
    time as they are the main audiences of these adverts. For instance, the programs
    which advertise nutritious foods, individual games, and books can be categorized as
    useful programs for children.

    In conclusion, although some parents have valid concerns about the content and time of
    showing advertisements, I think children as the younger level of society, can be targeted
    by these programs providing that the advertised product/service contribute to empowering
    learning ability, the way of thinking, and growth of the children.

  3. Sam says:

    Hi mam, could you please clarify the above essay is balanced approach or not and please explain if it’s one sided approach then how to write for our opposite view to make Task response perfect

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