I don't think that's why you see more ads targeted at children. I don't have any data to back it up, but intuitively I think ads targeted at children are the m

I don't think that's why you see more ads targeted at children. I don't have any data to back it up, but intuitively I think ads targeted at children are the most cost effective kinds of ads nowadays and as generations grow up this will become more true and true. Kids have a lot of influence over their parent's purchasing decisions when it comes to relatively cheap things (I'd guess that threshold is around $500 dollars since that is what video game consoles tend to cost) and children have not yet developed critical thinking to see through an ad's lies. It's a lot easier for an ad to convince a child that he wants something than to convince an adult or even a teenager, and usually you don't even have to bother with making a good product (think back to all the toy commercials that sold cheap plastic things that broke after a couple of uses), the child can then go on to convince their parent to purchase the thing. As more generations grow up getting used to ads, eventually only young children will be the only demographic not immune to ads, thus you will see more ads targeted at children just because they're the only direct ads that work, while ads for adults will move to different formats such as native advertising, paid reviews, product placement, etc.