The abstract of the Neeley/Schumann paper was

"The use of animated spokes-characters in advertising to young children is a strategic communication tactic frequently examined, debated, and criticized by parents, researchers, child advocates, and government officials. Although public opinion suggests that spokes-characters influence young children’s product desires, academic research has generally failed to demonstrate this effect. The present study extends previous studies examining spokes-character influence on children, and specifically examines the effects of character action and voice. Results of two studies support previous
findings that although character action and voice may influence a young child’s attention to an ad, character, and product recognition, and even a positive attitude toward the product, the relation between spokes-characters and a child’s preference, intention, and choice of a product is uncertain."

Here's what I came up with

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In considering my position with regards to advertising to young children, I read the paper ‘Using Animated Spokes-Characters in Advertising to Young Children’, as well as considered my personal world-view of the subject.

Overall, I do not feel that spokes-character (S-C) advertising is harmful to children or is unethical. Although I believe that S-C advertising is effective in ways that hasn’t been able to be measured – such as lifestyle and parent/child relationships, it is generally conducted in good-taste, and in ways that are consistent with communicating wholesome brand values.

One factor that must be considered is the age of the child. Very young children, referred to as preoperational in the paper, have extremely limited cognitive abilities that are needed to form long-lasting opinions, perceptions and values. These abilities increase with age. Because of these limited cognition skills, I feel that many of the messages they receive via advertising are ignored or not understood. As a result, any negative effects on the child are temporal.

I do believe that young children do remember certain points from advertising that help shape their attitudes and desires. These memories are communicated to their parents, who ultimately make the buying and purchasing decisions. It is these decisions and experiences that form lasting impressions. A good example of this is McDonalds. I suspect that young children only remember the Ronald McDonald character - a character that is happy, full of bright colors – and that when they communicate this to their parents, the parent attempts to complete the picture or fill in the details. The child most likely does not prefer McDonalds to any other food brand, but simply remembers the character only. This factor effects how the parent and/or purchaser reacts. They confuse recognition with desire.
My opinion on this issue presupposes that the information children receive is credible, trustworthy and wholesome. This includes reasonable product performance expectations, and high quality values relative to society and family. Although many of the underlying themes involved in these may not be received by young children, they still need to be followed. If advertisers do this, I do not see many harmful effects on children.

Parental choice is also a factor in my opinion. Advertising and programming serve to educate, inform and shape all of our views and perceptions on society and the world. Parents need to maintain their ability to make decisions independently without intervention. A world without advertising to children would limit a child’s ability to cope with it when they are eventually exposed. Also, limiting advertising to children is both impractical and virtually impossible given the number of opportunities and media forms.

Websites and Children
Websites are increasingly being used in the marketing/communications scheme to help engage children online. The two sites that I reviewed – Froot Loops and Tony The Tiger – were both excellent examples of the types of tactics being used today. Both sites attempted to influence children’s attitudes toward the brand, to engage them through activities.

What I found most interesting, was that both sites were focused on extending each brand’s paradigm or current promotion, and were not just merely forms of entertainment. In the Tony The Tiger example, information about ‘earning your stripes’ was presented via a series of star athletes. Although the information was presented in an animated and fun way, a deeper message about the brand could be inferred. Whether or not children caught this, this type of messaging reflects that websites are not merely forms of entertainment for children. They work as a form of marketing to help build brand awareness and communicate messages. While the Tony The Tiger site presented information on sports, biographical info on the athletes, the Fruit Loops examples continued it’s fantasy paradigm with games, puzzles and fun activities. Both are examples of how the web can be used to reinforce a marketing message or theme. In additional examples, two other websites that I visited, Life Cereal (lifecereal.com) and Wheaties (wheaties.com), followed this by providing additional information that supports each brands mantra.

How effective these tactics are in influencing choice among children is debatable. I found the websites that I visited to be written in a manner that assumed a higher level of reading ability. Although the Fruit Loops site and Tony The Tiger were presented in a more elementary fashion, they still required the user to posses sophisticated hand-eye motor skills to navigate. How much of an issue this can be for a young children is difficult to gauge.