Marketing to Children: Inevitable or Beneficial?

In relation to my first post on the ethical issues of marketing, I would like to address what others have written on the subject in the blogosphere. When it comes to marketing to children there are many different perspectives that are taken on whether or not it is ethical because children can be so easily influenced by persuasive advertisements. There is not a definite answer to whether it is right to advertise toward children or not, but most, including myself, agree that advertising is okay for children as long as there are some limits to it. Companies that offer unhealthy snack foods or use excessively biased advertisements should not be allowed to market to kids because these kinds of products and marketing techniques are not in the best interest of the children. There are certain internet sites that are made by groups who are dedicated to marketing to children and helping others to advertise their products (GeppettoGroup.com & BigOrbit.com), not to say that these sites are the culprits when it comes to overly aggressive advertising, but their specific techniques could be border lining on what is and isn’t appropriate for kids. And there are other sites, such as this blog, that would like to see happy balance between advertising and responsible buying power for children in the marketplace. In this post I will offer my comments on two marketing blogs on similar topics that I came across in the blogosphere. The first is a post by M.C. Milker, a mother and marketing consultant, which she entitled “Report on Toy Fair - What Parents Need to Know”. Her entry discusses an annual toy fair and the new toys that are coming into the market that are made especially for new movies and for internet usage. She argues that these new toys are the products of careless marketing and not only lessen the amount of imaginative play that children can enjoy, but also may backlash against marketers by replacing their toys with internet play. The second blog is called “The Unbranded Kid: Thoughts on Marketing to Children” and is written by J.D. Roth who is the writer of a financial self-help blog called "Get Rich Slowly". Her post analyzes the use of branding to children and how children are ultimately manipulated at a very young age by companies into becoming consumers as they age. My comments have been posted to their blogs and are also offered below.

“Report on Toy Fair – What Parents need to know”
Comment:
To begin with, I would like to say that your blog is not only engaging but it is of particular interest to me in its focus of marketing and advertising to children. It seems from your report on the toy fair that the toy industry is changing to a more interactive kind of play that links toys to the world of media such as television, film an internet, and for the toy industry this is a fairly new concept. From a marketing perspective this seems like an ideal situation to have a toy that is linked to an upcoming feature film because kids are most likely going to want to see the movie and it makes it that much easier on the marketers of the toys because they don’t have to do very much persuasion to get their toys sold. And you being a parent yourself, I can understand why you would be concerned about the drawbacks that these kind of toys can have on the quality of your child’s childhood, being that these toys limit the amount of imaginative play that a child can experience. But, from a different perspective, I wonder if these toys could also have some benefit to them. In a world that is evolving into a highly technology based society, it may be beneficial to introduce children to the world of the internet and get them accustomed to using it at an early age. It could be said that children who do not have internet access or have not been introduced to particular technologies could later be left behind when it comes to classroom learning which has also evolved to include internet based assignments and research. Toys that have internet capabilities could very well be the new learning toys of the 21st century because they introduce children to a world of technology that can benefit them in their future. To what extent these toys are using the internet I am not sure of and I’m aware they you have a much broader perspective on toys and the kinds of toys that are offered at these toy fairs, but there can be some good that comes from these small innovations.

“The Unbranded Kid: Thoughts on Marketing to Children”
Comment:
Yes, sad to say, branding is almost inevitable in a child’s life. As you say, diapers are even heavily branded, and I also had never noticed this because I do not have a child either, but once I began to study marketing there were so many different commercials and ads that are geared toward children that I had never noticed and it was a real eye opening experience. Branding by companies is done in a way that if they can not directly catch you with it, they have other ways to get you exposed. Using an example from your post where you explain that peer pressure at school is one way that branding can be forced upon children is an excellent example of how a company can reach a child who may have never seen television their whole life. Because branding is somewhat unavoidable, I agree with your statement that the only real defense to aggressive branding and advertising is for a parent to “raise their children to think independently”. Responsible spending and knowledge of the marketplace are key to parents when it comes to raising not only a responsible child but a smart consumer. Children are geared toward consumerism at a younger and younger age as marketers constantly come up with new products to fit a need that young children have. And because they are put in the position of a consumer as a young age, product and purchase education has to be taught by parents as soon as children are able to watch a television ad. Most children, even with extensive knowledge of the market and products, are not going to be willing to actively recognize what products they need in relation to those that they want because of issues such as peer pressure as you indicated. It cant be expected that a child is capable of completely responsible spending because the majority of parents aren’t able to block out ads for things that they don’t really need, so in the end it must be accepted that children are going to be somewhat branded, but as long as a parent does their part in educating their child about good spending habits and gives them a general product knowledge, then kids should be okay.