According to recent investigations children under the age of four may be not capable to tell apart advertising from other television programs, while the skill to determine the directness of the message may not be developed before the age of 8.

In the European Union and elsewhere, there is a vigorous debate on whether (or to what extend) advertising to children should be controlled. This debate was aggravated by a report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in February 2004 that suggested that food advertising for children was an significant factor in the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States of America.

There have been growing efforts to defend the public interest by the means of regulating the content and the influence of advertising. Some cases in point are: the ban on television tobacco advertising imposed in a number of countries, and the total ban of advertising for children under the age of twelve imposed by the Swedish government in the 1990s. Though that control continues in effect for broadcasts originating within the country, it has been diminished by the European Court of Justice, that had found that Sweden was obliged to accept outside programming, including those from bordering countries or via satellite.