Marketing to Children Why do it?

it? Children today are directly responsible for billions of dollars in purchases Children influence their parents purchasing decisions Children are future consumers, and if you get them young you have them for life

Child% Spending!
According to 1997 statistics, income and spending of children aged 7-12 was estimated as follows:
Country Monthly Income US$ per child Germany 32.30 UK 31.50 US 29.10 France 22.50 Japan 10.70 China 9.00 Annual Income US$ per child 569.40 506.20 493.10 377.90 407.90 182.00 Total Spending US$ per year 0.9 billion 1.7 billion 8.9 billion 2.2 billion 1.0 billion 2.6 billion

Source: Laurie Klein, More than play dough', Brandweek, Vol. 38 (24 November 1997)

Child Influenced Spending In the US there are over57millionschoolage children and teenagers who spend about $100 billion each year of their own and their family's money. Additionallychildren12andunderspendmore than $11 billion of their own money and influence family spending decisions worth another $165 billion on food, household items like furniture, electrical appliances and computers, vacations, the family car and other spending. For example, one study estimated that children influenced $9 billion worth of car sales in 1994. Future Consumers Advertisers recognise that brand loyalties and consumer habits formed when children are young and vulnerable will be carried through to adulthood. Retailers and manufacturers have two sources of new customers, those who they can persuade to change from their competitors and those who have not yet entered the market. Those who switch are less likely to be loyal than those who are nurtured from childhood. The Evolving Consumer Fromage1:AccompanyingParentsandObserving. Children are taken with their parents to supermarkets and other stores where all sorts of goodies are displayed.

 Fromage2:AccompanyingParentsand Requesting. Children begin to ask for things that they see and make connections between television advertising and store contents. They pay more attention to those ads and the list of things they want increases. The Evolving Consumer Fromage3:AccompanyingParentsandSelecting with Permission. Children are able to come down from the shopping trolley and make their own choices. They are able to recognise brands and locate goods in the store. Fromage4:AccompanyingParentsandMaking Independent Purchases. The final step in their development as a consumer is learning to pay for their purchases at the check-out counter. Fromage5:GoingtotheStoreAloneandMaking Independent Purchases. Bytheageof8childrenmakemostoftheirown buying decisions. Modern children can often recognise brands and status items by the age of 3 or 4, before they can even read. One study found that 52 percent of 3 year olds and 73% of 4 year olds "often or almost always" asked their parents for specific brands. Advertisers recognise that brand loyalties and consumer habits formed when children are young and vulnerable will be carried through to adulthood. The Evolving Consumer Types of Marketing Television: by the time most US children start school they will have spent 5000 hours watching television. They will spend more time watching television than they spend in class for their entire schooling. While toys in general are marketed to children through television advertising, the majority of toys marketed are linked to television characters. Often cartoon characters would be launched as movies, be followed up by television series and then be merchandised on hundreds of products from tshirts to toys. Types of Marketing Advertisers not only feature cartoon or other characters from children's television programmes to gain their endorsement for their products (known as host selling) but they sometimes even place those advertisements in the breaks of the television programmes about those characters, thus blurring the distinction between programming and advertising and taking advantage of the affection children feel for those characters. Childrenundertheageof5cannotyetclearly distinguish between reality and fantasy and have real relationships with these characters. Types of Marketing Kids clubs, organised by retailers, producers and media outlets, have proliferated in recent times. They offer an opportunity to develop a more personal relationship with each child, get information about the children for

marketing purposes that can be used for mailing lists and data bases, and to promote products to children of particular age groups and geographical locations. This exploits the childs intense need to belong to an identifying peer group. Concerns The primary concern is childrens credulity. Some experts say that children don't understand persuasive intent until they are eight or nine years old and that it is unethical to advertise to them before then. Children uncritically believe what figures of authority or influence tell them (sports stars, actors). From pre-teens onwards the danger shifts from credulity to peer pressure, when children have an intense need to fit in and be accepted by their peer group. Concerns Child psychologists have discerned dramatic increase in materialism amongst children as a result of their exposure to advertising and the message to consume and acquire. Asked what they want to do when they grow up, children used to say doctor, nurse or fireman (emulating adult roles they admire). Today the most common answer is to make money. This materialism in children makes them very aware of social and economic inequalities, and leads to a kind of materialist prejudice (you are what you own) Concerns Psychologists have also identified a huge increase in narcissistic wounding, in which children exposed to large amounts of advertising feel that they are deprived and inferior because they do not own the best or latest toys and gadgets. Unlike adults, children do not have the perspective or emotional maturity to deal with this and internalize these feelings. Those children who do get all the toys they want, develop a sense of entitlement and inflated self- importance. The Challenge Taking all the above into account, the question is whether marketing to children needs to be more tightly controlled. A growing number of countries are no longer leaving it in the hands of the selfregulated advertising industry, but implementing legislation. For example, setting strict limits on how much advertising to children is allowed in the afternoon and early evening, or banning outright certain types of marketing to children. What do you think??