Ryan ToysReview— a popular preschool-targeted YouTube channel boasting over 20 million subscribers, featuring a 7-year-old boy named Ryan Kaji playing with and reviewing playthings — is in hot water withTruth in Advertising.
In a complaint filed to theFederal Trade Commissionon Aug. 28, the nonprofit group (known as TINA) slammed the channel, alleging that it “deceptively promotes a multitude of products to millions of preschool-aged children in violation of FTC law.”
“Ryan ToysReview’s sponsored content is presented in a manner that misleadingly blurs the distinction between advertising and organic content for its intended audience,”the letter reads, giving examples of “deceptive marketing” like ads for Carl’s Jr., Nickelodeon and Chuck E. Cheese that they alleged contain either no disclosures or “inadequate” ones (e.g., written) that children watching the videos would not naturally pick up on.
Ryan ToysReview.
One of the complaint’s authors, TINA Executive Director Bonnie Patten, spoke toTodayParentsabout the letter, saying, “Organic content, sponsored content — it’s really all the same to a preschooler.”
“They just don’t have the intellectual capacity to distinguish when they’re being pitched to and when there’s a child playing with a toy because he likes that toy,” she added.
In the complaint, Patten and TINA Legal Director Laura Smith wrote, “when aYouTube video directed to childrenunder the age of 5 mixes advertising with program content, as Ryan ToysReview videos frequently do, the preschool audience is unable to understand or even identify the difference between marketing material and organic content, even when there is a verbal indicator that attempts to identify the marketing content.”
“Preschoolers can’t read,” Patten toldTodayParents. “[Ryan ToysReview] can’t use this sort of native advertising to market to preschoolers.”
Ryan Toysreview/Youtube
In an interview withThe New York Times, the executive director atCampaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Josh Golin, said, “A 5-year-old isn’t going to understand that Ryan’s talking about the toys because Target is paying him to talk about the toys.”
“There may be some disclosure, but disclosure isn’t meaningful to a child that young,” he added.
A statement from Ryan’s dad Shion Kaji to bothTodayParents and theTimesinsisted that the family prioritizes their viewers’ safety and “strictly follow all platforms’ terms of service and all existing laws and regulations, including advertising disclosure requirements.”
source: people.com
