Publicidad y juguetes: Análisis de los códigos deontológicos y jurídicos

Abstract

This study examined toys spots on Spanish television during Christmas 2009. The idea is to know the level of fulfilment of the different self-regulation codes as well as the legislation involved in this subject. The goal is to learn whether the messages comply with these codes and whether children are protected from the advertising that is misleading. Everyone involved in the advertising process must be aware of the childs vulnerability. Over a total of 379 spots, and a methodology developed ad hoc for this purpose we elaborate a data base with different parameters to be analyzed: identification of advertising message, characteristics linked to the product and messages that try to increase sales. Results are focused on non-fulfilment repetitions from a quantitative point of view. A 25.9% of the corpus is concentrated an illegible caption, the action to incite children to consume or go to different website references. However the most successful action for the advertising industry has been that almost all of them have presented their products on television with their real dimensions, without modifications or exaggerations that change the real nature of products. We recommend changes and modifications on the actual system of self-regulation as well as on global references for advertising.