Free Lesson Plans For Teachers: Marketing to Kids

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Free Lesson Plans for Teachers
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Marketing to Kids
March 28, 2007

The Washington Post is running an article entitled, "Study Finds Food
is Top Product Advertised to Kids."

According to the article, a new study released by the Kaiser Family
Foundation, "found that more than a third of commercials targeting
children or adolescents are for candy and snacks--often high-fat,
sugary foods that are likely to fuel the on-going childhood obesity
epidemic."

The study investigated 1600 hours of television programming
broadcast from late May to mid June 2005.

Read a Similar Article!!

Discussion-Starters for Younger Children

Have your students ever wanted to buy something after they
saw it on a commercial? What? Did they, or their parents, buy
it? Was the real thing as good as it seemed from the
commercial? Why/why not?

Using a T-Chart ask students to compare what they
thought the product would be like to what it actually
turned out to be. Would your students buy the product
again? Why/why not?

Ask your students what their favorite commercial is. Why do
they like it? Does it have music? What is the setting of the
commercial?

Consider asking students to develop their own
advertisement, in groups of two or three. If possible
allow them to vodcast these advertisements.

Ask your students to pick one commercial that they think could
be changed. How would they change it? Why would they
change it this way?

Students could write simple sentences explaining how
they would change the ad.

Tell your students to imagine that they wanted somebody to do
something. What would they say to convince the person to do
it? Might they tell a fib if they thought that it might get the
person to do what was wanted? Why/why not? Do your
students think think that somebody might tell a fib to get thir
way? Why/why not?

This would be a good time to discuss the importance of
safety and asking parents for confirmation of things that
children doubt.

Discussion-Starters for Older Students

Vocabulary terms to discuss: Consume; Marketing; Nutrition;
and "Life Expectancy".

Do your students think that companies should be allowed to
promote any item they choose? Why/why not? What might be
the consequences of allowing companies to promote anything
they want? What might be the consequences of limiting what
companies could promote?

These questions could prompt an interesting class
debate. Try to determine what promotions students
think the government should prohibit and what
promotions the government should not prohibit? Are
there any general rules that could be applied to
answering this question? If so, what are they?

Ask your students to respond to the following scenario. The U.
S. government knows that childhood obesity leads to shortened
life expectancy rates. Obesity is caused by poor eating habits,
including eating food with too much sugar in it. Therefore, the
government has decided to outlaw the eating of candy. What
statements in this scenario may be incorrect? How could one
determine the accuracy of these statements? If outlawing
candy would increase the life expectancy rate in the U.S.,
should the government outlaw it? Why/why not?

Consider asking students to write four or five questions that
they would like to answer in order to develop a better
understanding of the accuracy of these statements. By pushing
them write four or five questions, students will be prompted to
think critically.

This article reports on television that was broadcast in 2005.
Do your students think that an investigation of today's
commercials would find similar results? Why/why not?

Students could conduct their own investigation as to the
type of commercials that are on television. Such an
investigation could require students to use math skills
and strategies. To begin this process, students could
develop categories of commercials that they expect to
see. These categories would represent the null
hypothesis.

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