Advertising techniques
How advertising works… even when you don’t realize it. Just letting kids know they’re being advertised to is not enough to make them engage critically with an ad. Helping kids recognize how advertising works is essential, too. Even young kids can become more skeptical about marketing when they’re told why and how ads try to persuade them.
Marketing to Teens: Marketing Tactics - Lesson
This activity helps teenagers develop an awareness of marketing tactics aimed at teens through the creation of their own mock advertising campaigns.
Marketing to Teens: Talking Back - Lesson
This lesson helps teens become active consumers by encouraging them to 'talk back' to advertisers when they have concerns.
Online Commerce
Kids don’t just see ads in media: more and more, they buy things right on their screens. This section looks at the ways that young people shop online and how they can be manipulated into spending.
Adversmarts: Understanding Food Advertising Online
In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea of online advertising and look at the ways that marketers create immersive and appealing online environments that draw and hold children’s attention. After studying common advertising techniques, students play an educational game online that lets them put their learning into action by “creating” a site advertising a fictitious cereal, Co-Co Crunch. Students then look at examples of real commercial environments and watch for “weasel words” used by advertisers.