ETEC 523 A1 - Mobile Advertising

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Mobile Advertising in Kid-Friendly Apps

Experience

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Mobile Advertising in Kid-Friendly Apps

Experience

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Mobile Advertising in Kid-Friendly Apps

Experience

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Mobile Advertising in Kid-Friendly Apps

Experience

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Mobile Advertising in Kid-Friendly Apps

Experience

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Mobile Advertising in Kid-Friendly Apps

Experience

References

Education

The Future

Impact

Types of Ads

Privacy

FCC

COPPA

Ethics

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A Brief History

Federal Communications Commision

• Television advertising to young children has been regulated in the US since the 1970s (Meyer et al., 2019)
• This was based on concerns that children under the age of 8 years old are not able to critically examine and evaluate advertisements or differentiate them from other media programming that is being consumed (Meyer et al., 2019)
• For example, TV advertising regulations limit the number of commercial breaks within a certain amount of time, but limitations like this have not been adopted by mobile advertising
• Restrictions and regulations like those that exist for television have not kept up with the evolving and demanding market of mobile media content

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A Brief History

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

• "Regulates how mobile apps, games and websites are allowed to collect and process personal information from children under the age of 13" (Reyes et al., 2018, p. 63)
• COPPA states that it restricts and prohibits certain data collection practices, and requires the consent from an adult or guardian for others (Reyes et al., 2018)
• Enforcement of COPPA regulations and restrictions is tedious and requires manual examination of apps, games, and websites to find violations (Reyes et al., 2018)
• In a study of 5,855 apps, Reyes et al. (2018) found that 28% accessed sensitive data protected by permissions and 73% transmitted sensitive data over the Internet
• Overall, of the 5,855 apps tested, Reyes et al. (2018) found that approximately 57% of these apps were potentially violating COPPA
• Data collection and mobile advertising go hand in hand when examining the impacts of children using mobile applications

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Ethical Implications

• Children under the age of 6 to 8 years old cannot distinguish between media and advertising (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Connick (2019) states that "kids do not understand persuasive intent, the fact that advertisers are trying to sell them something" (para. 2)
• Advertisements embedded within interactive gameplay may appear to be part of the game, and therefore may be more difficult for young people to avoid (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Developmentally, children do not know where apps and games end and advertisements begin until they are past the age of 8 years old (Conick, 2019)
• No mobile platform applies maturity policies to restrict the content of in-app advertisements (Chen et al., 2013)

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Privacy Implications

• The Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) restricts the collection of personal information from children aged 13 years and younger (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Research has shown that most apps do not ahere to these privacy principles (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Apps use a variety of ways to collect personal information, but the most common way is through the use of "SHARING" information using social media or by providing ratings of an app in the app store

In-App Purchases

Commercial Characters

Deceptive Ads

Sharing Info.

Full-App Teasers

Ad Videos

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6 Major Categories of Mobile Advertising

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• Commercial characters are the most prevalent type of advertising in children-aged mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• They are found in 48% of kid-rated mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• These characters are usually advertising for a cartoon or a toy that may or may not be correlated with the app in which they are found in (Meyer et al., 2019)

Commercial Characters

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• Full-app teasers are found in 46% of kid-rated mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• These usually occur as prompts to upgrade to a full version of the app
• They entice users to buy the full version in order to recieve an "ad-free" version of the application (Meyer et al., 2019)
• A full-version of the game could also unlock more levels or certain gameplay items that may be essential for success within the game (Meyer et al., 2019)

Full-App Teasers

Click the pig to get more play time!

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Want more?

• Ad videos that interrupt play are found in 35% of kid-rated mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• These videos usually promote apps, in-app purchases, or other products
• Usually occur between levels of a game or during a break in the users usage of the app
• These videos are usually hard to exit out of or require the user to watch the entirety of the video before they can proceed (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Tapping on the videos usually takes the player out of the app and into the app store to purchase whatever is being advertised (Meyer et al., 2019)
• These videos can also be interactive, which forces the user to "play" within the ad before it can be closed

Ad Videos Interrupting Play

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• In-app purchases are found in 30% of kid-rated mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• These advertisements allow the user to buy items for the game (extra lives, characters, locations, upgrades, etc.) (Meyer et al., 2019)
• They can also sell gameplay time to the user (Meyer et al., 2019)
• In-app purchases are usually promoted by a familiar character from within the game

In-App Purchases

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• Prompts to share information are found in 28% of kid-rated mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• In most cases, these advertisements are looking for users to "rate" the applicaton they are using by heading to the app store (Meyer et al., 2019)
• These can also be prompts to share scores on social media
• Sharing scores or rating the app sometimes rewards the user with more time or additional in-game items (Meyer et al., 2019)

Prompts to Share Info

Earn FREE $$$ by playing video games!

CLICK HERE! FREE APPS!

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• Distracting or deceptive ads are found in 17% of kid-rated mobile apps (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Most of the ads are portrayed through banners that cover a portion of the application (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Banner ads are often used for advertising other apps, but these advertisements usually do not suit the maturity rating of the app they are found in (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Banner ads sometimes contain misleading buttons that look like they are a part of the game but actually take the user to different places to download the advertised app (Meyer et al., 2019)

Distracting or deceptive Ads

• Meyer et al. (2019) state that "free apps contained more full-screen pop-up video advertisements that force the user to stop gameplay, banner advertisements, hidden or disguised advertisements, prompts to connect to social media, and features involving unlocking items through watching advertisements" (p. 5)
• Free apps contained a high prevalence of advertising that used distracting features, potentially manipulative approaches, and content that did not appear to be age-appropriate when compared to the app that they were found in (Meyer et al., 2019)
• Children may still be able to view high maturity content from in-app advertisements within those apps rated with low maturity (Chen et al., 2013)
• Manipulative approaches to share or rate apps can cause the user to give out personal information

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Impact

• With the abundance of educational apps that exist in the mobile world, educators and educational institutions need to be aware of what advertising content they are exposing their learners to
• Educators need to be mindful in their mobile application selection to ensure that parents and guardians know what data is being collected from their children
• They also need to be aware of whether or not the type of advertisements that are being used in the mobile applications are distracting from the learning goals of the application by drawing children's attention to irrelevant stimuli (Meyer et al., 2019)
• At the end of the day, parents, guardians and educators should be engaging with their children and students during mobile application usage. This will allow them to understand what the mobile application does, what the children are being exposed to, and if/how data is being collected from the children

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Education

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• There is a lack of discussion around regulations surrounding mobile advertising and their impact on children in North America
• This conversation is happening elsewhere though, most notably in Europe, through www.childrensdesignguide.org
• Through the use of a guide like the "Childrens Design Guide", content creators, app developers, and advertising agencies can gain insight into how to develop content and applications while ethically navigating advertising for children

What now?

• Campbell, A. J. (2016). Rethinking Children's Advertising Policies for the Digital Age. Loy. Consumer L. Rev., 29, 1.
• Chen, Y., Zhu, S., Xu, H., & Zhou, Y. (2013, September). Children's exposure to mobile in-app advertising: an analysis of content appropriateness. In 2013 International Conference on Social Computing (pp. 196-203). IEEE.
• Conick, H. (2019, April 2). Game Apps Are the Latest Battleground in Child Advertising. American Marketing Association. https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/game-apps-are-the-latest-battleground-in-child-advertising/
• Designing for children. (n.d.). Designing for Children. Retrieved February 20, 2021, from https://childrensdesignguide.org/
• Meyer, M., Adkins, V., Yuan, N., Weeks, H. M., Chang, Y. J., & Radesky, J. (2019). Advertising in young children's apps: A content analysis. Journal of developmental & behavioral pediatrics, 40(1), 32-39.
• Reyes, I., Wijesekera, P., Reardon, J., On, A. E. B., Razaghpanah, A., Vallina-Rodriguez, N., & Egelman, S. (2018). “Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?” Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale, Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2018(3), 63-83. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/popets-2018-0021

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References