The power of advertising can easily be understood through its daily repetition and high accessibility, while its influence on children’s development has never been in doubt. Though social learning theory developed by Stanford University psychologist, Dr. Albert Bandura, posits that children start to learn personality and behaviour patterns by imitating their parents, research has also shown that children emulate the behaviour of other attractive models, especially when the behaviour is rewarded (Children Now 1997).

In their formative years, children imbibe a lot of values from the media, including advertisements, vis-à-vis how boys and girls should behave. From childhood to adolescence, stereotyped images of females and males are constantly imprinted on their neurons courtesy of advertisements to which they are exposed. One of the effects of this bombardment is a continuum of limiting messages that portray the female as a sex object, inferior, weak and clownish (Centre for Media Literacy 2003).

By the time girls become adolescents they abandon children’s programming and opt for more sophisticated prime- time material. Their development is further heightened by their elastic media appetites, which transcend television to include offers from movies, music, and teen magazines. This is accompanied by increased exposure to media messages, including advertisements.

The persuasive power of advertising does have an impact on teenagers as well as young children. As adolescents redefine themselves and their relationships, they contend with their changing bodies and envisage their future. Yet advertising and media transmit messages to them, which have potential to limit their aspirations. Girls mostly interpret the emphasis on female appearance as a need to pay more attention to their physiques rather than their intellectual and emotional selves (Children Now).

Most of us know about a popular sanitary pad television commercial (though I hardly understand what they are saying), which features excited and fun- loving teenage girls. The figure of each model in the advertisement lends credence to the “idolization of thinness" theory espoused by a school of thought in advertising. Studies have shown that girls are constantly under immense pressure to be slim, thereby altering their self- esteem in the process. In addition, their sense of body image is distorted and their eating habit gets disordered, a condition, which if mismanaged, could result in bulimia, anorexia, depression and other anxiety disorders (J.S. Crouse 2003).

Themes that are common in pornography and violence are starting to appear in advertising and children are not protected from the vastly expanded audience of contemporary communication media. There was an outrage in the United States two years ago because of a television commercial by Dippity-Do, popular manufacturers of hair- care products. Viewers overheard a restroom conversation between a boy and a girl, which suggested that they were out and “doing" one (J.S. Crouse). Surprisingly, producers of the commercial described it as simply “naughty, not nasty."

Let us come back home to Nigeria. Do you recall a press advertisement by a culinary organization, which shows a handsome boy whispering suggestively in a pretty girl’s ear, while the latter giggles? Why refer to the boy as a friendly adult (the theme)? There is yet another local press advertisement by a food beverage company, which displays a happy boy hanging his idle arm on the shoulder of a contented girl, while both proudly carry a cup each of the drink.

Studies have shown that subtle advertisements like these make boys perceive the female as a pretty package, something to behold, but not necessarily to be respected (Children Now). The series of advertisements used by Calvin Klein, maker of clothing for men, women and children as well as fragrances and other accessories, were, in 1995, withdrawn as a result of pressures mounted by the public and the retail industry (M. Alawdeen 2000). The advertisements portrayed a lot of suggestive images and only succeeded in running for two months.

Keith Reinhard, chairman of New Yourk’s DDB Worldwide, believes that advertisers and agencies need to recognize the power they possess. However, the medium on which advertising professionals frequently abuse their enormous power is billboard. It is even posited that the outdoor medium is the frontline when it comes to controversial advertising (L.Sinclair 2001). And why parents should feel disturbed is because outdoor has a unique quality of being generally accessible to consumer eyes.

While you can choose to have cable TV in your home or not, you cannot avoid being force- fed with messages by outdoor advertisers. Outdoor is critical, as families cannot decide not to travel through highways. A friend who relocated from Missouri not long ago can confirm that a drive along Route 1-70 through the heart of the city would shock you as advertisements portray women with naked breasts and other forms of nudity. How, for example, did my friend manage to shield these advertisements from his young children?

Controversy- chasing Australian shoe company, Windsor Smith, hit the headlines five years ago when it defied the country’s Advertising Standards Board’s recommendation that its controversial billboard be withdrawn. The contentious material showed a woman with her head close to a man’s crotch, thereby connoting oral sex (Maria Ligerakis 2004). Of course the advertisement enraged the Aussies to the point that the appropriate authorities had to pull down the posters.

Outdoor advertising is an influential medium with a high profile that penetrates even the remotest parts of our country. As a result, it has a major effect on the standards, lifestyles and quality of life of our communities. I am therefore wondering if that sector should not be a lot more regulated, especially when you consider materials that exploit the female gender as a sex object. Closer attention should also be paid to indecent and irresponsible advertising to children.

Away from outdoor, a mainstream advertiser in the U.S also went overboard lately and drew the ire of the American public in the process. After the release of the holiday edition of its provocative quarterly, replete with obscenity and sex tips, teen clothing retailer Abercombie and Fitch faced a boycott by the country’s Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families. The quarterly had to be rested immediately.

Do you still remember our own immoral outdoor advertisement for a condom brand and the issues it generated? We are starting to find it difficult to protect our children from suggestive subjects and images that they are not emotionally and psychologically prepared to handle. Do we not owe our children the duty of protecting them and guarding their childhood? There is no doubt that things have changed from being decent and proper, to being indecent and morally corrupt.

Before I am crucified for heaping all the blame on advertising, I would like to quickly submit that advertising is not solely responsible for this calamity. However, and sadly too, it helps shape the reality- e.g. the societal ills- which it reflects (J.P. Foley and P. Pastore 1997).