Television versus the Internet
How is the Net different from television?
Consider these points:
 | The Canadian television industry has standards for advertising to children. Advertisers may not pressure or mislead children; they are not allowed to exaggerate product characteristics; they can't directly urge children to buy a product or service, or ask their parents to buy it for them; and advertising alcohol and tobacco products to minors is forbidden.
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 | Internet advertising is largely unregulated, and knows no national boundaries. In other words, almost anything goes!
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| | Television advertising engages children only as passive consumers who just watch and listen.
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| | The Internet engages children interactively, allowing them to react to the content provided by the marketer and participate in online environments.
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| | TV advertisers purchase time slots between TV shows, which they select because they hope their product or service will appeal to the same audience the programs attract.
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| | On the Internet, corporations create their own programming. They build entire online environments to create associations with their own products, to establish brand loyalty, and to collect information about their present and future customers.
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| | Advertising on television has a certain "look and feel," which children quickly learn to recognize. The sound level even goes up when a commercial comes on.
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| | Internet marketing is so blended into the content of a Web site that the lines are blurred between advertising, entertainment and information.
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| | Traditional marketing tools such as Nielsen surveys may give advertisers a general idea of their audience profile, in terms of age and maybe gender. But individual children are anonymous.
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| | Internet marketers are able to collect data about specific users, through the use of online registration forms, quizzes and surveys - or through computer "cookies," electronic tattlettales that track where kids surf, how long they stay there, and what they download. |
