Why do people market to children? What do they expect their end result will be? To sell more goods? To gain market share?
Marketing to children is something which can be extremely costly, as the majority of marketing campaigns aimed at children are promoting toys, it is these toys that push the price of the end product up significantly.
Why is this you may ask. Well the answer is extremely simple, every character needs a licence. It is the cost of making an ordinary product an 'official licenced product'. This also in turn protects the manufacturer, as it would be difficult for the base company to give the rights of the product to any other company.
For example, Disney is a company have a product, such as 'Playhouse Disney', they take this base that has built to a manufacturer such as 'Fisher - Price' to manufacture different products under the umbrella. The company's both sign a contract. This is then pretty much a licenced product and Disney could not go to another firm to have the products made unless a breech of contract occurred.
Firstly, what's the difference between marketing to children and marketing to adults? Marketers need to be clever in the way that they are selling the product to children. They cannot simple use the main rules of marketing to adults as there are currently are separate set of rules about marketing to children.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) say that adverts are not meant to harm or distress children in anyway (ASA, 2009). The company also states that ads should not directly ask children to pester their parents to make the purchase, it should only be used to inform the relevant audience of the product, features, availability and price. A good advert for marketing to children is the advert for
Dr Daniel Acuff, author of the book 'Kidnapped', a book written about how markets are stealing the mind of children's speaks about his own personal experience and how he has noticed his theory developing in real life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZslgHPs9am4 This video gives a good reasons about the negative aspects of marketing to children and shows that children do enjoy the traditional games such as crafts and doing things other than playing video games.
He also goes on to speak about how children are at great danger of not knowing when a game is a game and when reality starts, this is because children are left to play video games hours on end, with catastrophic impacts.
In February this year a boy of 16 from America is await sentencing after killing his mother for taking his play station away. After that didn't kill her the youth took her body and cremated her. (Yahoo News, 2011) This is not the first case of violent crimes against parents or Innocent members of the public for this type of punishment.
There are many issues with marketing to children... In many countries governments have banned marketing to children for many reasons.
It is not only marketing to children that is causing a problem. As children are watching more and more television than ever before, they are picking up on these adverts and then causing havoc in stores by crying, screaming or shouting when parents refuse to buy this product that they have seen. This is more commonly known as pester power, where children will pester a parent for a new toy until they give in and make the purchase. Children these days have many different tricks up their sleeves! They know exactly how to get what they want and how far to push... Children make fake promises, something which has not changed over the years, this is where children want a new toy really really badly, but their parents say no, so they say 'if you buy it for me, I will do the washing for a week or mow the lawn, however these promises never get filled!
Another big problem that children have to suffer with is playground bullying. Children want to fit in where ever they go... Its natural... However when everyone has a certain brand of trainers or the 'cool kid' has a new toy or iPod they become the trend setter, which everyone follows, However there is always one child who cannot be in this group, this can cause them to feel like a social outcast, thus lowering self esteem. As Solomon says 'Recent research by one of the major UK teaching unions, has found that children who cannot afford to buy the latest brands and fashions face bullying and ridicule by their peers. as well as isolation and exclusions.' The quote also says how teachers have found that marketing campaigns on children have had a significant influence over the past few years. (Solomon M, Bamossy G, Askegaard S & Hogg M, 2010).
Mintel states that men find it more difficult to say no to their kids more than women and that it is harder to say 'no' to children aged between 15-18 (Mintel, 2010).
Mintel also states that less children are participating in some sort of physical activity in their spare time as the figure has dropped by 6% between the years of 2006 to 2010 whereas, children are enjoying their time on the computer more (increase of 2% over the same period). (Mintel, 2010)
The same Mintel report shows that since 2008 the rate of children saving their pocket money has significantly increased by 21% between 2004 and 2010 (Mintel, 2010). This means that they are spending less money on sweets and magazines than before. This could be for many reasons, one being that in 2008 the credit crunch came around and parents were forced to give children less pocket money, this theory could be accepted as Mintel found that in 2008 children saving their money jumped up by around 22% from the previous year (Mintel, 2010).
Solomon states that children are now the decision makers in many aspect of daily life. For example when a mother is doing the weekly shop they often ask the children which breakfast cereal they want or which sweets to buy. This is giving the children a responsibility, which in turn is making them grow older quicker. (Solomon et al, 2010).
To conclude this posting, I feel that although the government are being strict on marketing to children, marketers are still going to be clever and find ways to entice children into buying products that are up for sale.
Reference List:
Mintel, 2010, Toy retailing UK, [Online], Mintel, Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/show&/display/id=480969, [Accessed 20th March 2011]
Solomon M, Bamossy G, ASkegaard S & Hogg M, 2010, Consumer behaviour a european perspective, 4th edition, Harlow, Pearsons Education LTD.
Yahoo News, 2011, Boy kills mother over playstation, [Online], Jeffery Van Camp, Available at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110216/tc_digitaltrends/boykillsmotheroverpla ystation_1[Accessed 18th March 2011]
