Online Kids’ Activities - Ad or Game?

This past spring, to go along with the launch of “The Lorax” movie, the International House of Pancakes launched an online children’s game. The ad industry’s own standards police, the Children’s Advertising Review Unit, found it was more of an advertisement than a game. IHOP disagreed, but this is one of many issues that federal regulators are struggling with – when is a game for kids more of an ad, and should it be labeled as such? As kids spend increasingly more time in front of screens beyond the living room television, advertisers are responding with sophisticated ad campaigns that can start on the TV and then move to apps, social media sites, and online games. One possible solution is printing some kind of disclosure – but that isn’t much help as much of the target audience doesn’t yet read!