Virtual worlds for kids are becoming increasingly popular. As the audiences grow, executives from companies are taking an interest. This week’s article looks at the use of advertising in these virtual worlds. Go to the link below and read the article. After reading the article, go to one of the sites mentioned or a similar site that you know and look at some of the Web pages at that site. Write a reflective comment that addresses the topic and my questions.
Why do you think that people are worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual worlds? Are their concerns justified? Does marketing at a subconscious level work on younger children? Does it work on you? What laws would you create to protect children from this? How would you enforce it? Which website did you explore? What were your impressions?
Virtual Worlds Article
Possible websites to explore
Stardoll
http://www.stardoll.com/en/
Whyville
http://whyville.net/smmk/nice
Gaia
http://www.gaiaonline.com/
Barbiegirls
http://www.barbiegirls.com/home.html
Hasbro
http://www.hasbro.com/
Millsberry
http://www.millsberry.com/
12 comments:
"Ads a Virtual Worlds"
I Believe that people are worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual worlds because the main customers of many online kids games are of course kids. Younger kids may not know how to interpret the advertisements properly and so may react inappropriately to the advertisement or may click on the advertisement by accident and go to another link that they understand nothing of. Therefore I believe that the peoples concerns are very valid and justified. I also believe that the advertisement on children websites may be useless because the kids have very little influence on what they can buy, most of it is decided by their parents, so making children want something doesn’t mean that they will get it, it will just mean that the parents of the children will get very angry about the kids constant wanting for toys etc.. That they may just ban the child from the website for good, not good for the website makers! I also believe that advertisements do not work on me because usually the advertisements are not from Jordan so I have no chance of getting the item in the advertisement any way, so I don't even pay attention to advertisements anymore! I would make a law prohibiting children sites to have advertisements for products, but I do not find anything wrong with advertisements that lead you to another site/ a co-site! That is how you get to know other sites. I would also enforce this law by having people check the sites, and if they have any advertisements on them, then you fine the sites. That was what I would!
By: Nadim K. 9th grade
In my opinion, the reason why people are worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual world is because children might want to buy the objects advertised in the ad and maybe misuse money to buy what they want. Moreover, there is only one regulation, which the site states, ‘…regulations protecting kids online are through the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. The legislation stipulates that sites targeting children under the age of 13 must post a detailed privacy policy and obtain permission from parents to collect any personal information about them. COPPA doesn't deal directly with advertising…’. Even if you do marketing at a subconscious level, the children will still get affected by them because they are so easy to lure, especially with new or cool objects. Ads don’t work on me because, first of all, I have a pop-up blocker, so I hardly see them. Second, I know that if I press those ads, they’ll go either to weird sites or tell you to pay money. I have never used real money on the internet also, due to my mom, who thinks it’s a waste of money. If I were to make laws, I would make one like, “Ads on the internet should be open only with the approval of adults.” And I would put some check lists for the parents to do and write their e-mail, so a message would be sent to them, saying that their child had opened an ad. If you use fake e-mail addresses or use their own e-mail addresses, I will give several warnings, and after that, there will be small fines. I went to stardoll.com and it was a bit dumb for me. I mean, why would you want to buy something that you wouldn’t have anyway. I thought using money to make your avatar fashionable was plainly stupid and dumb.
I think that people are concerned about the introduction of advertising in virtual worlds because some kids may not recognize the advertisement and how to use it. They might just click the wrong button and perhaps even order it. That’s why peoples concern is very justified. If the markets at a subconscious level worked on younger children it wouldn’t make sense because most of the options on the website are not chosen by the children; the parents select it for them. That’s why it would not make sense. It would not work on me because if I press on of the pop ups when it ways “free” on it it’s always a scam because either way your going to end up paying money, and on my computer I have blockers that prevent pop-ups from coming. I’ve also passed that age of everything I see I believe so for me its common sense. If I were to make a law on protecting children from this it would probably be warning adults to keep children away. I would enforce this by making adults check it first before they enter or click the advertisement. I went to http://www.millsberry.com/ and http://www.stardoll.com/en/ and found it useless. (My sister passed by and was confused!) What I found dumb was the shopping for stardoll. It’s a waste of money, why would u shop online for a doll.
By: Ousmane Yonis 9th Grade.
I think what people are worrying about in this article is the fact that propaganda is now being directed towards children via frequently used websites such as online games and networks. I don't think their concerns are justified, the only problem is that they fail to accept the fact that companies need to promote their products in any way possible. To them, the idea of pressing products to children is hypnotism in a way, when it's not. Isn't marketing always done at a subconscious level? Advertisements you see everywhere are always trying to appeal to you in various ways, they want to suck you in in order for you to facilitate the income of their profits. They're not really going to come up to you saying "Please buy our products", they're going to present them in a way with which you will find yourself lacking whatever they're selling and therefore buy their product. And it does work. I guess the marketing strategy in use when it comes to children is done in a somewhat different way where the kids become attached to the product as a result of frequent interaction on the internet. It's a pretty successful strategy for the companies. The advertisements made online definitely don't work on me. If I perceive this marketing strategy as hazardous to little minds, I would probably have parents sign an agreement of some sort, like the one mentioned in the article. I would enforce it by not letting the children sign up for the site or use it before completing the permission by their parents. The website I visited was Whyville.com. The first impression that I had of the site was that it was done in such a way to appeal to children. The way it was presented was almost grotesque; the colors, the characters, the wording, the font. Everything that was used, was made in a way to attract children's attention. Also, getting around the website is so easy so the kids would be able to explore it themselves and get more absorbed in its content.
Ads in Virtual Worlds
People are worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual worlds because the people they’re advertising too are children. These kids don’t know how to think critically about how someone’s trying to make them be loyal to a brand or to buy their products. The people concerns are correct since kids could click on any advertisement which would then lead them to some inappropriate site and they wouldn’t know how to handle it. I don’t really pay attention to the advertisements and when they do pop up I just click out of them. I’d make laws where the parent has to see what advertisement the kid wants to go to and to see if it is appropriate for their child. I went to the Hasbro website and I didn’t see the point of it. There were toys there that people could just buy at a local store. The site was pretty useless.
Sasha
People are probably worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual worlds because children are so often exposed to them and are probably the most susceptible audience to believing advertising lies. Their concerns are definitely justified because there have been recent issues where cigarette and alcohol companies have consciously or unconsciously appealed to younger audiences through their use of cartoon mascots in advertising. Because they have no life experiences or sufficient mental processes to differentiate between advertising truths and lies, marketing at a subconscious level almost always works on younger children. I remember when I was a child, if I saw a picture of a kitten or puppy on something, I'd want it no matter what it was. It could have been something as harmless and trivial as a pencil or it could have been something much more hazardous like my mom's lighter. If such simple things as a cute cuddly kitten, the newest Barbie doll, or a friendly cartoon character could divert and focus a child's attention, then marketing companies have found an extremely easy but effective way to hook their consumers at a young age. Laws to protect children should be that advertising for harmful substances such as alcohol or cigarettes should not be shown on children's channels or family channels on television. These advertisements must also be examined for mascots or animals that might appeal to children if it is determined that a mascot is "too appealing" to the younger age division, then it must not be included in the company's advertising campaign. In order to enforce such laws, television companies should regulate what advertisements they show on what channels and at what times. For example, it may be acceptable to show an advertisement for beer at 2 A.M. when most children have gone to bed but that same advertisement might not be deemed acceptable if shown at 3:30 P.M. when most children come home from school and want to watch their favorite programs. Mascots should also be reviewed according to a certain criteria put forth by the FCC or similar organizations. For this article, I looked at the Stardoll website and at first I thought it was much like the paper dolls I used to play with when I was a kid. However, after looking at the site further, I realized the "dolls" consist of celebrities and that the site actually promotes the movies, albums, etc. of these celebrities. I'm absolutely shocked that this site is allowed to continue promoting bulimic celebrities with plastic faces and bodies who get trashed and wasted every day of the week. Is this what we've started teaching today's youth? What happened to Barney?
I believe that people are concerned about advertising in virtual worlds because of the way that children interpret them. Like it was mentioned in the article children are often connect to virtual worlds on an emotional level and don’t understand what the commercials really mean. However, they should also be concerned about the amount of time that children are exposed to the advertisements. Constantly watching advertisement causes the brain to repeatedly send signals, which causes you to associate that certain product with happiness. With greater exposure to the advertisements than adults and the inability to interpret the messages correctly, makes large businesses, especially those targeted towards children, to spend over 1 billion dollars a year on publicity. To protect children we should create laws limiting the amount of time advertisements are featured on a web page. That would limit the exposure time to children causing the advertisements to have a lower impact on them. We could easily enforce those restrictions on virtual worlds because they are hard to hide and use a lot of memory. If we would place such restrictions on all websites the amount of information to process would cost a lot of money, man power, and time.
I believe that people are worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual words because the consumers of these virtual worlds are kids. This is not good because most kids do not know how to handle online advertisements properly and could cause many problems such as allowing viruses to invade computers or opening an inappropriate web page. Therefore I believe that parents should take precaution on their Childs use of internet access. Also many kids don’t have access to buy products from the internet without parent approval. In my opinion advertisements are a waste of time and annoying because most of them are over unwanted things, now days most people ignore advertisements on the web. Therefore I think that advertisements should be band from the internet.
Hytham Bakir
People are worried about the introduction of advertising in virtual worlds because of the age of most of population (children and teenagers) using these virtual worlds, and games. The worry is justified because kids would start playing and wasting time on these virtual worlds and the links that are provided by advertisement, and most of them would sign up to the links provided by the ads and start using those games or sites as well, taking time away from schoolwork. Marketing at a subconscious level would work well on children because they would want whatever was advertised. This technique doesn't work on me because I know what I want, I know what I like, and I know what the good brands are, especially for soccer equipment, which is usually what I search for on the internet. To protect children from this advertisement, i would sanction laws about the type of advertisement on the websites that children use. I would enforce it by putting pressure on the advertisers and the hosting websites. I explored Gaia (http://www.gaiaonline.com/), and it was really useless and a waste of time; why would you want to hang out online when you could walk a few feet and get driven to a friends house and hang out in real life.
People are worried about the introduction to advertising in virtual worlds because it is usually a place where parents will feel not entirely secure about placing their children in. the main target of some of these adds may be to look attractive to children, so where it might say “click here to see Barbie” It might be drawing these children in to possibly something inappropriate. I think that their concerns are perfectly justifiable because who knows what could happen online where children are the most venerable. Not every safeguard and firewall is going to stop your child from viewing inappropriate adds etc… on the internet. It can be either ways, a subconscious company that wants to place adds may be intentionally trying to corrupt the children’s minds or they may just be trying to get adds on as many sited as possible. It does not work on me because of the fact that I am older this means that I am more experienced and am usually not tempted by these free phones or screen savers. The only law that should be in place is that there should not be any adds on the site unless they are advertising parts of that site. I explored Club Penguin and I found it a very secure site, they had parent info pages etc… also the only adds that they had were related to the site for instance promoting the Club Penguin Night Club, and the new Gift Cards!
In my opinion, people are worried because they are afraid of ads that will influence their children to do bad things. I think that the parents are being irrational because companies need to do whatever they can to make business happen and earn a salary; even if that means influencing kids t their product through the internet on gaming sites. Parents think it as an evil thing to “mesmerize” children into buying things, but really that’s how all advertisements are, even when parents are advertising green beans to their children at the dinner table. I have learned to ignore online ads because they usually lead to personal information surveys that I do not want to fill out online, where hackers can find everything. To avoid this type of “harm” to children, I would have all parents sign an agreement, like the one in the article, and have all the children monitored by their parents, so that parents don’t complain about not knowing what their children do online. I visited hasboro.com and my impressions were that it is very colorful and appealing t6o children. The advertisements definitely influenced children easily since they are so colorful and easy to use.
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