ABSTRACT
The first part of the title of this chapter, although clichéd, is hopefully not entirely devoid of meaning to the reader, although the latter part might only become clearer later. Over 20 years ago I used the phrase in another book chapter (Young, 1986) which was based on a conference in France on advertising to children. As far as I am aware I was the first person to invent the phrase and it has been picked up and used again and developed into a concept more powerful than my original formulation. For example Ritson and Elliott (1999) have taken it beyond a simple litany of skills and competencies that the average reader requires to appreciate the genre and have introduced considerations of interpretive communities who use advertising as just one resource in the their collective constructions of meaning. After 20 years though we now have a historical perspective to look again at how others have approached general issues and concerns in the area of advertising to kids and see just what has been achieved, where faults (but not blame) might lie, and how we can better go forward in the future. And with the even worse cliché ‘whither advertising literacy?’ hovering on my lips I shall get on with the job.
