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Published on August 15, 2007

Advertisements were now being shown about 50 times an hour, along with marketing tricks including free gifts and lucky draws via 1900 phone services, a Chulalongkorn University (CU) researcher said yesterday.

Psychologists fear the influence of free handouts could make children materialistic.

Wanna Sriwiriyanuparp, from CU's Consumer Protection Plan, told a seminar at Bangkok's Asia Hotel a study found snack commercials were most frequent during children's cartoons on two TV channels from 8-10am on Sat July 28.

A cartoon on one channel was aired for 32.1 minutes, but viewers were also shown 11.7 minutes of ads - at an average of 40 times per hour, Wanna said. The other channel aired ads for snack foods for 18.9 minutes an hour - but showed the ads 58 times, she said.

The cartoon programmes also had a tie-in with the snack food companies. TV hosts urged children to buy snacks and talked about free gifts that came with them, showing a visual display of snacks and gifts.

The average number of ads this year had risen to 49 an hour, up from the 42 ads an hour last year, Wanna said.

The tactics had also changed from 2005, when fewer gifts were attached to snacks. Last year, there was an increase in gifts and cards, while this year lucky draws via 1900 phone service lines - which charge the caller Bt6 a minute - had also been included.

Wanna said the old criteria of dividing a whole-day's airtime so an average of up to 12 minutes of ads were shown each hour only caused advertisers "to crowd the cartoons". And it was time the situation was better controlled.

She suggested government officials should clearly state a limit on ads shown during a children's cartoon - and what they contain.

Another CU researcher, Seriraroj Sukamolsant said children's snack ads also confused children, such as the message that snacks "were vegetables" and they could be eaten instead of the real thing.

While gifts attached to snacks came in many forms to get children to collect them, she said some ads showed "inappropriate behaviour" of a person stealing his friend's snacks to eat - making it look like fun.

Director of the Mental Health Department's 13th Mental Health Centre, Dr Amporn Benjapolpitak, said studies indicated that if children were stimulated by ads, say four repeat images in an hour, it would prompt them to want to buy the products.

Gifts attached with snacks and fast-foods also created problems, as children would want to have the money to buy the products to get the gifts to compete with their peers, she said. This could cause them to grow up to be materialistic.

Tassanee Naen-udon, from the Foundation for Consumers, said the National Broadcast Commission was due to meet today to decide if there should be controls on snack food ads. She urged the NBC to be firm and rule for the benefit of the majority - and not be swayed by firms opposed to ad limits.

Duangkamon Sajirawattanakul

The Nation