The History of Kids and Advertising

In 1477 William Caxton created what many experts argue was the UK's first ever advert, little did he know he was kick-starting a multi-million pound industry that continues to thrive today. While he wasn't interested in reaching children (his book - 'The Pyes of Salisbury' wouldn't have given JK Rowling any sleepless nights) his innovation would eventually lead to the first mass-market medium aimed directly at kids - comics.

The Rise of the Comic Book

For most of the 19th century advertisers didn't see children as a natural target market. In England the majority of kids couldn't read and were too busy working to put food on the family table to worry about buying the latest toys.

In the late 19th century this began to change when compulsory education and cheaper printing processes led to the first ever comics. The 'Penny Bloods' were hated by critics, but their gory tales of murder and violent crime proved popular with both children and adults looking to escape gruelling manual work.

By the 1930s, publishers realised that it was children, rather than their parents who were comics' main audience. This led to DC Thomson launching The Dandy and The Beano. Both titles were immediate hits with children, who loved the wacky characters and outrageous situations.

As the market for comics grew and diversified into different genres (including girls' comics, boys' comics and war comics) advertisers realised that they presented an excellent way to reach the children's market. Some of the earliest adverts in comics included notices for everything from stink bombs to improving religious books. By the 80s, as children grew more sophisticated, they would be joined by ads for pop posters, computer games and digital watches.

Today, most 'traditional' British comics have folded, with TV and and movie tie-ins (such as The Simpsons comic) taking their place. While in more innocent times adverts were tucked away between the strips, now branded characters use the story itself to promote toys, movies and DVDs.

Radio and Television

In the US, with little history of public service broadcasting, radio and TV shows have always been developed with advertisers in mind. In the 1930s, when radio was the dominant mass market medium advertisers reached children through sponsorship of their favourite programmes. Kid's radio shows were sponsored by products like Ovaltine, who would pay for short advertorial 'announcements' before shows - and sometimes get plugs from characters in the show itself.

By the 1950s, audiences for radio had tailed off in favour of a new medium, television. From the outset advertisers saw the massive potential to target children through the flickering box that was a feature in an increasing number of living rooms.

They were right to have such high hopes of the medium. When Welch's grape juice sponsored children's favourite The Howdy Doody Show in 1957, they were impressed to see that sales of their product to families with kids increased over five times.

From the late 50s to the 1980s advertisers trying to reach kids saw the Saturday morning cartoon slot as their main showcase. The major networks would programme animated features, designed to attract children, while the advertisers would fill the ad breaks with enticing ads for new games, toys and fads.

In the 1980s the ads refused to be relegated to the breaks and started to become part of the programmes themselves. Popular children's shows such as He Man and the Masters of the Universe were basically extended adverts, introducing characters which kids could pester their parents to buy as action figures.

The Internet and Beyond

Today children have whole TV networks devoted to them that can reach more kids than advertisers in the Beano ever dreamed of. But, in the last few years a new medium has developed which has the potential not just to talk at kids, but to interact with them too.

More and more advertisers now see TV and print ads as a way to drive children to websites where they can play games, take quizzes and talk to friends in an environment wholly geared to immersing children in the world of their products.

But is this new environment potentially more influential to children than a 30-second TV advert or a twenty minute episode of He Man? With a computer increasingly taking the place of the TV in every home, it's a question parents and regulators alike will have to tackle sooner, rather than later.