Well in the UK, you may not advertise junk food to children. A tabloid aimed at adults could contain that ad for your lollipop. A comic, kid's magazine or website, or TV channel or kid's time slots may not.

From my now very vague memory of childhood TV, most ads for toys and games came in the evening news and soaps slots. When the adults were around too. Junk food was still OK, so kid's tv ads were for comics, and sweets, and sugar, oops I mean cereal: Sugar Puffs, Ricicles, Frosties etc.

I think it's a big mistake our regs on advertising toys to children have faded over the years. It's been shown time and again kids 12 and under can't understand commercial intent by ad industry research. So the real age may be higher.

Thanks.

If I post a video of my game on Reddit, am I marketing to children? There are a lot of children there, but it isn't a childrens' website. Does it matter if my game is strategy-/turn-based or animated with cute graphics?

I don't think reddit is a primary channel for kids so probably not, unless you specifically go into a reddit where it is known that a lot of children frequent and advertise there.

Are you being facetious?

Identifying demographics and targeting the marketing to them is the bread and butter of modern advertising. The entire justification for Google's and Facebook's mass consumer surveillance is to offer corporations more targeted advertising.

There are gray areas but if you're marketing to children, you know you're marketing to children.

That’s all well and good but despite your indignation you haven’t actually explained what it means to market to children. Maybe I accept your premise that marketeers know how to single out specific demographics, but I don’t work in marketing so I have no idea what separates “marketing at children” versus just marketing in general.

There is not a specific black/white for this but if you have to ask you are usually on the wrong side.

For cases like this it's much easier to evaluate it case by case.