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The digital age has brought about great changes in the practice and design of marketing and advertising campaigns. In recent years, the development of new strategies such as influencer marketing has increased dramatically, involving minors who have become true protagonists in the marketing of toys, video games, fashion, etc., with the Instagram and YouTube platforms being the most widely used. This activity has been highly criticized recently, despite its occurrence worldwide with the main aim of broadcasting audiovisual content by minors, often including product placement and/or promotions that are not duly announced. However, in most cases, it is very difficult to prove the existence of a contractual relationship between the promoted brands and the minors. For this reason, a novel method was developed in this work to analyze the audiovisual content based on assertions in the message, thus enabling a determination of the characteristics and specific circumstances of the content broadcast by kidsfluencers (aged 15 or under) that would constitute camouflaged acts of illicit advertising. The results are conclusive and demonstrate the repeated presence of advertising in the videos analyzed. In Spain, this would represent a clear violation of the current legal framework and an obvious danger to minors or followers of these influencers. This situation could also be extrapolated to other societies that are dominated by the use and impact of new technologies and the internet, which should be updated and developing in accordance with new trends in the practice of marketing and advertising online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital age has brought about great changes in the practice and design of marketing and advertising campaigns. In recent years, the development of new strategies such as influencer marketing has increased dramatically, involving minors who have become true protagonists in the marketing of toys, video games, fashion, etc., with the Instagram and YouTube platforms being the most widely used. This activity has been highly criticized recently, despite its occurrence worldwide with the main aim of broadcasting audiovisual content by minors, often including product placement and/ or promotions that are not duly announced. However, in most cases, it is very difficult to prove the existence of a contractual relationship between the promoted brands and the minors. For this reason, a novel method was developed in this work to analyze the audiovisual content based on assertions in the message, thus enabling a determination of the characteristics and specific circumstances of the content broadcast by kidsfluencers (aged 15 or under) that would constitute camouflaged acts of illicit advertising. The results are conclusive and demonstrate the repeated presence of advertising in the videos analyzed. In Spain, this would represent a clear violation of the current legal framework and an obvious danger to minors or followers of these influencers. This situation could also be extrapolated to other societies that are dominated by the use and impact of new technologies and the internet, which should be updated and developing in accordance with new trends in the practice of marketing and advertising online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]