Children Marketing: The Aspects of Advertising to Kids - Essay Example

Children consumer Advertising to children is the act of marketing or advertisement of productsor services to children. This is always a subject of debate as children have increasingly alleged influence on children’s consumption. Children highly represent an important demographic to marketers because in addition to their purchasing power, they are the most influencing factors to their parents decision on products and services they buy. The paper shall be more involved indecision of the consumption of kids in the economy this will relate to their responsibility in the buying process. With the growing marketing treads where the children are more targeted due to their increasing number and demographic position where we argue that if the process of marketing to children is a social problem? Then what should be done to get a solution the underlying problem. This paper will give an out line of the responsibility of children in marketing of product; it will show how different companies have strategized to have children being a factor that is always looked into when they plan for their advertisement ventures. Lastly it shall have some of the solution that can be put in place to reduce dominance of the children influence. a conclusion that will act as a summery of the paper shall discus me Companies market food, toys, electronics, restaurants, and other recreational facilities on television, radios on the internet, magazines through product placement on movies and video games, in schools, on product packages, and almost everywhere a logo or a product image can be displayed. This is usually done by use of spoke-characters, celebrities, cartoons, premiums, collectibles, games, contests, and other kids among others (Linn, 2005). Compared to the previous generations kids have more autonomy and decision-making power within the family this means that kids are more vocal about what they want their buy through the children’s ability of nagging their parents into buying items they may not otherwise have bought buy. according to a book kid influence the act being nagging can be divided into two categories which are persistence an d importance the book defines persistence as the nagging behavior of a plea which is repeated over and over again for a long time which makes the resistance to wear out and the parent is left to give in to the demands of the child. On the other hand, importance nagging it mainly appeals to parents desire to provide the best to their children and plays on any guilt they may have about not having most of their time with their kids alternatively children may also use it to ask for items they want in the pretense that they are important. example a child may come up with a lie that for them to perform well in school they need an expensive laptop for their studies a nice smart phone and a car instead of being taken every day to school. With that the parents may find it worth to buy the items for the good of their children (Hawkes, 2007). Advertisers in the business field spend hundreds of billions dollars world wide persuading, manipulating and encouraging people into a consumer lifestyle that is aimed to make people have an extravagance and wasteful life. This is done by advertisers exploiting individual insecurities, creation of false needs and giving counterfeit solutions. When a need is created, this automatically fosters dissatisfaction that leads to consumption. Children are the most vulnerable to this sort of manipulation (McNeal, 1992). Children marketing has out grown from sweets and toys to now includes cloths, shoes, range of foods sports equipment, computer products and toiletries as well as products such as cars and credit cards. Marketers are believed to plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young children in the hope that the seed will grow with them into a lifetime relationship. According to the center of a New American dream, babies as young as six month can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Additionally they argue that brand loyalties can be formed as early as the age of two which means that when the child is ready for school they can recognize hundreds of brand logos (McGee, 1997). Alternatively, on the issue of fast food, clothing and toys companies have been cultivating brand recognition in children for year’s also adult-oriented business such as banks and automakers are now getting in on the act. research shows that in the US there are over 57 million school age children and teenagers who spend more than $100 billion each year of their own and family’s money on sweets, video, electronic products, toys, games movies, sports, clothes also they influence family spending decisions which is estimated to be worth $165 billion on food, household items like furniture, computers vacation and family cars car dealers days most of the times children are their customers since they are the ones who literally pick the car (Durning, 1992). Significantly, manufactures cannot afford ignore the children in their marketing companies, Nissan for example has sponsored the American youth soccer organization and a travelling geography exhibits so as to get exposure for their brand name and logo in child-friendly settings. Chevrolet on their part, they have used advertisements featuring children, while Chrysler distributes hundreds of thousands of glossy cardboard pop-up promotional books by direct mail that will appeal to children who love pop-books (Linn, 2005). Mcneal (2010) n his book kids as customers creates an exiting estimate that if there are about three quarters of a billion children in other industrialized countries, when one lets his marketing run wild for a moment, he says that if these children spend only half of what US children spend their market potential would be equal to around $86.5 billion. he also pointed that even in china where children do not get much income and save most of it, their total spending amounts to $2.6 billion per year which is second to US additionally he also carried out a survey that showed McDonald’s was the favorite fast food all over the world and Coke the favorite drink he argued that it is possible to create a global preference with food products where there are so many obstacles like culture and local cuisine then it would be much easy to create preference in toys, clothing and entertainment products (McNeal, 1992). a child consumers development advances in stages where they first have to accompany parents and observe how they are purchasing. Secondly they not only accompany and watch they also start to request for things from these stores this is where the connection between television advertising and store starts to take roots. (Hawkes, 2007)Thirdly they are also involved in selecting the items to be bought though they have to be allowed to, since they are able to recognize brands and also locate goods in the store. After this stage the child can accompany the parents and make independent purchasing decisions also learn how to pay for the item at the check-out counter. Lastly children above 8 years can go to the store alone making purchases and buying decisions on their lone since they can read and distinguish brands (Hawkes, 2007). Though its unclear on the ability of children so young to understand advertisement and its intention therefore making sure not to be deceived or manipulated, experts argue that children may not understand the persuasive intent until they are eight years or nine and this is unethical to advertise to them at this age. Additionally, young children have difficulty in differentiating advertisement and reality in ads since ads can distort their understanding of the world, or evaluate advertising claims (Wilcox, 2004). Conclusion According to the paper its is true to conclude that children form a big purchasing and consuming power, through purchasing items themselves or influencing the purchase decision made by their parents which range from simple things like house utensil to family car. Companies and manufacturing industries have also realized the power of children behind purchasing; therefore they have laid down strategies to be able to capture this market that is offered by children. the pares discusses how some of this companies influence the children in decision making though selling themselves and making themselves known to the children. The paper also discusses how children can be easily manipulated due to their scarce understanding of the advertisement intent. Reference Durning A.T (1992), How Much is Enough: The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth, ed. Linda Starke, Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series. London: Earth scan. Hawkes, C. ( 2007). Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Letter to the FTC. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://commercialfreechildhood.org/pressreleases/transformersftcletter.pdf. Linn, S. (2005). Consuming Kids: The hostile takeover of childhood. New York: New Press. McNeal. J.M (1992). Kids as Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children. New York: Lexington Books. McGee. T and Kevin .H, (1997). `Getting Inside Kids Heads. American Demographics, Vol. 19, No. 1 Wilcox, B., Cantor, J., Dowrick, P., Kunkel, D., Linn, S., & Palmer, E. (2004). Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children: Recommendations. http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads_recommendations.pdf Read More