Slimy tactics: the covert commercialisation of child-targeted content

Abstract

There are growing concerns about the commercialisation of childhood and the consequences of marketing to children, including marketing’s negative effects and increasingly sophisticated and potentially deceptive online tactics that permeate the contemporary media environment. Children and young people are prolific users of video-sharing platforms (VSP) such as TikTok and YouTube, yet little is known about children’s advertising literacy within these contexts. Therefore, this paper answers recent calls for a deeper understanding of children’s advertising literacy in light of their increasingly digital lifestyles. A combination of qualitative, participatory creative methods were used with children aged 9–11 from the UK. Findings show that despite their negative perceptions of online advertising, children place a level of trust in video-sharing platforms, based on a misconception that the commercialisation of content is always disclosed. This is concerning because children may prefer and pay more attention to content that they believe to be genuine.