Learning A–Z

Grade
Lexile
level V
4
950L
Multi-level
Word Count
Nonfiction • Informational
N/A
1,217
How
Refer to the Focus Question on page 2 of this title to guide
discussion and support additional learning connected to the text.
Advertising
When you turn on the TV or visit a website, what
advertisements do you see? How Advertising Works
exposes students to the behind-the-scenes world of
advertising. This book explains what advertising is, how
Works
it works, and how and why it targets children. Colorful
photographs and an interesting topic will keep students
engaged. The book can also be used to teach students
how to determine cause-and-effect relationships as well
as to ask and answer questions to better understand
the text.

Photo Credits:
Front cover: © Alexander Spatari/Moment/Getty Images; title page: © Gary Leonard/Corbis Historical/Getty Images; page 3: © Krisztian
Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images; page 4 (main): © Donald Iain Smith/Moment/Getty Images; page 4 (TV inset): Tyler Olson/Alamy Stock
Photo; page 4 (bottle inset): © [Link]/primo-piano; page 5: © Andia/Universal Images Group/Getty Images; page 6: © [Link]/
Imagesbybarbara; page 7: YAY Media AS/Alamy Stock Photo; page 8 (top): Richard Levine/Alamy Stock Photo; page 8 (bottom left): © iStock.
com/kali9; page 8 (bottom right): Antiques & Collectables/Alamy Stock Photo; page 10 (top): Ira Berger/Alamy Stock Photo; page 10 (bottom):
Steve Skjold/Alamy Stock Photo; page 11: © imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock; page 12: © Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty
Images; page 13: © Peter Macdiarmid/Photolibrary/Getty Images; page 14: urbanbuzz/Alamy Stock Photo; page 15: © Tim Boyle/Bloomberg/
Getty Images

For more great books visit

[Link]
Written by Sean McCollum
© Learning A–Z, all rights reserved.
 How Focus Question
How and why do companies advertise?

Advertising
Works
Words to Know
advertisements discontent
analyze logic
appeals loyal
banned media
brands methods
commercials products

Connections
Above: A billboard for Oreo cookies from the 1950s shows that advertising Writing
still uses many of the same methods today.
Cover: Huge advertisements are a constant presence at Times Square in
In a letter to an adult, explain why advertising to kids
New York City. should or should not be banned. Use details from the
Page 3: Sneakers are big business, and advertisements for sneakers are book to support your view.
often bold and colorful.
Social Studies
What kinds of advertisements can you find in your
classroom, your school, and your neighborhood?
Written by Sean McCollum Identify four advertisements and use the questions
on page 15 to analyze each one. Share your ideas
with your class.
 It’s often difficult to tell whether a person appearing in an advertisement
is a real doctor or other expert, or just an actor.

Ads, Ads Everywhere

When you turn on the TV, what commercials
Table of Contents do you see? If you look at a webpage on the
Ads, Ads Everywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Internet, what products pop up? At the movies,
what do you see on the big screen before the
How Advertising Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
show starts?
Selling Discontent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Advertisements are all around us, though we
Targeting Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 may not always notice them . We can be sure that
advertisers notice us, however . Businesses spend
Thinking Critically About Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
billions of dollars every year to advertise their
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 clothes, video games, food, and other products .

How Advertising Works • Level V 3 4

 You may not know it, but children and teens
are special targets for advertisers . Companies
carefully study what young people want . They try
to think of ways to make young people want what
their company is selling . They also look for ways
to turn children into loyal customers .

We are all consumers—people who buy and

use products . To be smart consumers, we need to
use critical thinking . Critical thinking is the ability
to analyze information to identify its purpose
Print ads are still used by many stores.
and trustworthiness . By learning how advertisers
try to shape our thinking, we can make better How Advertising Works
decisions about what products we buy .
In 2016, companies around the world spent
more than $493 billion on advertising . Companies
need customers to buy their products or services
in order to stay in business . A company spends
money on advertising for two main reasons . The
first is to make sure that customers know about
the company and its products . The second is to
convince customers to buy its products .

Advertising is also how media companies

make money . Media companies include
newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio,
television, and the Internet . Newspapers earn
money by selling space for advertisements on
their pages . TV and radio networks sell time for
Ads for kids often feature bright colors and toys or cartoon characters. commercials, while websites sell pop-up ads .

How Advertising Works • Level V 5 6

 Selling Discontent
Wherever we go and whatever we see, chances
are an ad is already waiting there for us . Over
many years, advertisers have learned to use
one main selling
strategy: discontent .
Why Settle for Sad Hair
Almost all ads try
When You Can Have Shiny? ethos
to convince viewers
that what they
already have is
not enough and that
they should want
more . They will be
happier, healthier,
or more successful BEFORE AFTER
if they buy the pathos logos
Ads often promise results that products
right products . may not deliver. These ads appeal to buyers in three very different ways.

Next, advertisers use three main appeals to Logos appeals to logic or reason . These ads
convince customers to take action . These three often include facts and details to try to prove a
main types of ads are often named using Greek point . For example, an ad about a truck might
words—ethos, logos, and pathos . give facts about how powerful it is .
Ethos is based on credibility—how believable Pathos appeals to emotions, like excitement
the person giving the message is . Ads that use or fear . By trying to get viewers to feel a certain
ethos often show a famous person or an expert, way, the ad hopes to convince them to buy or do
such as a doctor, using or recommending a something . For example, a commercial showing
product . Because viewers trust the person in the a family having fun at a restaurant wants viewers
ad, they are more likely to believe in the product . to believe they might have fun there, too .

How Advertising Works • Level V 7 8

 Can you name a commercial that sticks in your Targeting Young People
memory? Makes you think? Makes you laugh or Watch the commercials
feel good? Those are examples of advertising that that come on during any TV
use such appeals . Often, advertisements use a mix show that is popular with
of these strategies . kids . Chances are the ads
Most advertising tries to get consumers to are for fast-food restaurants,
buy, but some ads have a different purpose . These cereal, snack foods, video
ads try to get people to change their behavior games, toys, or popular
or get help . Anti-smoking and anti-bullying ads clothing brands . They may
are examples of these kinds of public service feature cartoon characters, catchy music, and
announcements, or PSAs . fun-loving friends who grab and hold the
attention of kids .
Where Do We See Advertisements?
Most children don’t
Advertisers try to put ads wherever there are eyes to see
have jobs or much
them or ears to hear them. Here is where advertising money
was spent in the United States in 2015. money to spend, though .
TV
So why do advertisers
37.7% spend billions of dollars
Radio
Digital/Online on ads aimed at them?
32.6%
TV One reason is that they
Radio
7.8% want kids to get adults
Print to buy those products for them . After seeing a
(newspapers,
magazines)
commercial for a toy or game, for example, a child
Digital/Online 15.4% may ask for it as a birthday present . An ad that
Directories makes a kid want to see a movie may get the
(phone books, etc.)
2.5% whole family to go see it . Studies also show that
Print Out-of-Home the opinions of young people carry a lot of weight
(billboards, etc.) when it comes to clothing, snack food, and
4.0%
restaurant choices .

How Advertising Works • Level V 9 10

 Cereal Success
The second reason advertisers target children One hundred years ago, families did not have cereal boxes in
has to do with building loyalty . Research shows their cupboards. Today, more than $10 billion worth of breakfast
that when young people have a favorite restaurant, cereal is sold every year. What happened? Marketing. Marketing
snack, or brand of shoe, they often stick with it as is what companies do to make their products stand out. Marketers
want to create a brand that customers will recognize wherever
they grow up . A loyal young customer can mean
they go.
a lifetime of sales for a company .
Ads for breakfast cereals often feature cartoon characters to
To shape young people’s choices, advertisers attract children. These characters show up in TV commercials and
on cereal boxes, and some have their own movies and TV shows.
put lots of ads in front of kids . A child in the
You may even see a giant version of a favorite character floating
United States watches an average of more than down the street during a parade. These marketing efforts are
twenty-four hours of TV each week, according designed to make children smile—and buy and eat more cereal.
to the Statistic Brain Research Institute . He or
she sees sixteen thousand commercials each year,
or nearly forty-four every day . Ads also show
up on favorite websites and in kids’ magazines .
Companies even pay to have TV shows, music
videos, and video games include their products
in the background .

Tony the Tiger is the cartoon mascot of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal.
This ad for Barbie dolls presents Barbie as a fashion icon.

How Advertising Works • Level V 11 12

 Thinking Critically About Ads
Fast-food restaurants often
In some ways, children are easy targets for use characters from movies or
video games to appeal to kids.
advertisers . Most adults have experience and
knowledge to understand what advertisers are
trying to do . In many cases, they can tell when
an ad is trying to fool them or make them feel
a certain way .
These critical
thinking skills—
the ability to
analyze and judge
information—get
better as we grow
older .

Many young people, though, do not yet have

these skills . Most children younger than four to
five years old cannot tell the difference between
a show and a commercial . Some countries see advertising to children as
harmful . For example, Sweden and Norway have
Children younger than eight may know that
banned advertisements targeting kids under age
commercials are different from shows . However,
twelve, as has the Canadian province of Quebec .
most don’t understand that ads are trying to
In the United States, though, advertisers are
sell something .
allowed to decide for themselves how to reach
At age seven to eleven, children know that ads children, and very few laws limit them . Without
are sales pitches . However, this age group is just such laws, smart young consumers need to have
starting to understand the methods advertisers strong critical thinking skills . They need those
use to shape kids’ thinking . skills to spot how advertisers try to convince them
to want what is being sold .

How Advertising Works • Level V 13 14

 Learning to think critically about ads can be Glossary
interesting—even fun . You and a friend might advertisements discontent (n.) page 7
keep track of the advertising and commercials you (n.) page 4 unhappiness or
see and then analyze the methods they use . Here public announcements dissatisfaction
are five questions that can be used to analyze any about products, services,
logic (n.) page 8
form of ad: or causes that are made
a way of thinking or
to attract interest or
understanding that
1) Who made the ad, and what is it trying to sell? promote sales
uses reason
2) Who is it trying to sell to? analyze (v.) page 5
loyal (adj.) page 5
to examine closely
3) How does it want us to feel? showing strong support
4) What does it want us to do? appeals (n.) page 7 for or attachment to
attempts to convince someone or something
5) What questions should we ask before buying or persuade; qualities
the product? media (n.) page 6
that attract attention
mass communication,
or raise interest
As smart consumers, we can use critical such as newspapers,
thinking skills to test the truth of such advertising . banned (v.) page 14 magazines, radio,
Then we can make up our own minds . officially forbade someone television, and the
from doing something; Internet, through which
prohibited information is given
to the public
brands (n.) page 10
types of products made methods (n.) page 13
by particular companies planned or orderly ways
and identified by specific of doing things
names
products (n.) page 4
commercials (n.) page 4 things that are made,
advertisements on the grown, or produced,
Why do you think the advertisers included a real apple next to the juice box
in this ad? television or radio usually for sale

How Advertising Works • Level V 15 16