Children in TV Commercials

I'm beginning to wonder whether anyone is monitoring how children are being used in TV commercials. I know that at least in the film industry laws are strictly enforced about how children are to be used. Maybe on TV not so much.

These thoughts have been brewing with me for a while now since noticing commercials for a bank that uses children as the butt for its jokes and advertisement. In this particular bank's first commercial that I noticed, a man asks a little girl, who has brown hair and non-white features, if she wanted a pony. She replies yes, and he gives her a cutout of a horse. The little girl is delighted. The man then asks a little girl with blond hair, seated next to the first little girl, if she wants a pony. The blond little girl replies yes. The man makes a clicking sound with his mouth, and a real pony enters the scene. He then gives the pony to the blond little girl. The first little girl then remarks that the man didn't say she could have a real pony, and he replies that she didn't asked. The first little girl gives the man a mean look and even intensifies the mean look. I got the impression that she was thinking she wish she were big enough to kick his butt.

That commercial annoys me so much that I now change the channel from it and would never consider using that bank. To further irk me, the bank has expanded its use of children in other commercials with the same tactic of tricking young children to make a point about the bank's trustworthiness.

Something about this makes me think that this bank as others are socially irresponsible as well as tone deaf. I've had only a few marketing courses, but I don't think I would ever brand myself or my products using children in a negative light. Just sayin'...