Ethics and the promotion of consumer brands to children: Marketing public relations in the UK toy industry

Toys represent children’s chief non-food desires, but there has been little research on the impact of public relations campaigns to promote toys to children. This study addressed two key related issues. First, it assessed the impact of marketing public relations messages on children. Second, it raised questions about the ethics of using marketing public relations to promote toys to children. We used focus groups with children in different age ranges, interviews with toy industry public relations practitioners, and a survey of members of the public. The results suggest that contrary to expected age association, the influence of public relations messages does not necessarily decrease with age. We also found, through adapting and applying Austin and Pinkleton’s levels of public relations impact, that there appear to be two ethical realities, one in industry, and one in society. We suggest a revision of Austin and Pinkleton’s model to reflect an ethical paradigm whereby an assessment of social, not industry, ethical reality determines practitioners’ judgement of ethical effect.