The first box I’d like to escape is the toy box, presuming that we define toy broadly to refer to all those products that are marketed aggressively to kids and the advertisements (both overt and clandestine) and advertisers that work so tirelessly to ensure that children feel less satisfied without these items.
As I see it, marketing to children is a three pronged monster.
First, I dislike many of the products themselves, the majority of which take the creativity and spontaneity out of play…
Sidebar: The teacher’s organization TRUCE has an excellent guide to choosing toys, you can find it at: http://www.truceteachers.org/toyguides/T_Guide_web_06.pdf
It’s wonderful. Thanks teachers!
….while simultaneously separating kids from one another by dividing them into categories based on their play choices — boy things versus girl things, big kid things versus baby things, cool things versus uncool things. It is the hallmark of consumerism that we define oursleves and others by our consumption choices. We ironically end up expressing our individuality by purchasing “unique” mass produced goods. Right. At any rate, this starts with children and is full blown by the time they are “tweens.” Have you ever seen a teenager’s room that has advertisements from magazines taped up on the wall instead of their own artwork or writing or photography? Expression through identification with brands, products, and the images used to sell them. We adults express ourselves through consumption too, but most adults have a more fully developed sense of who we are than your average 7 year old, so if we can’t have something, we don’t feel as though we’re somehow lesser human beings.
I also take serious issue with the content of the advertisements. In my opinion, advertising text/subtext that works to make kids feel badly about themselves, makes fun of outsiders, and teaches children that adults are stupid or losers (Your parents are idiots, your teachers are dorks, but I, the candy/sneaker/skateboard understand you) do no one any favors.
The third element that troubles me is the staggering ubiquity of advertising to children. We know ads are on television, of course, and can’t miss them stretched across everything from sneakers to toothbrushes to diapers, but they are also embedded in more insidious ways, where children are unlikely to recognize them. When is an ad not an ad? When marketers pose as kids in chatrooms and hype new music, movies, and toys…When television shows are created explicitly to sell merchandise…When Limited Too commissions Girl Scouts to create a “shopping” badge, having troop leaders bring kids to the stores, have them try on outfits and send home a coupon…When advertisers use characters in tv shows and films to promote products through product integration…How about Disney offering luxurious prizes for the priests who best incorporate The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe film into their sermons (Seriously, did you think your kids could be marketed to in CHURCH? Would YOU ever suspect it was an advertisement if yourpriest recommended a film during a sermon?)…What about when kids play videogames not realizing that they are advergames (Kaiser Family Foundation recently found 77 clandestine advergames targeted toward children)? Did you know there is even a company that “hires” girls to have slumber parties and promote products at them to their friends?…What about schools agreeing to show children commercials every single day (during classroom hours no less) through Channel One?…Or corporate sponsored curriculum that promotes products in word problems and essay questions? Where will it end? Google “Bus Radio” and you’ll find that there are advertisers trying to get access to kids while they are riding the bus to school! Marketers are investing unprecedented sums of money into reaching our children, and they are doing a great job. I think it’s gross.
Research shows that until they reach about 8 years old, children can not distinguish between advertising and entertainment content, and that’s when the ads and entertainment are distinct. How can we expect that a child will understand they are being targeted when they sit in school, in church, at Girl Scouts, at a slumber party, or in a chatroom talking with “friends?”
Juliet Schor (cited below) shows that it isn’t just sleazy, it’s dangerous. Her impressive research demonstrates (through some fancy structural equation modeling) that involvement in consumer culture is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints in children. It shapes the way kids see themselves, their peers, their parents, and their teachers. It also impacts their health, as the products advertised are not only toys, but lunchables, “fruit” rollups, candy, and fast food. If you are wondering how to avoid immersion in consumer culture, media use is a significant predictor of consumer involvement for kids. Less tv, less consumer involvement.
So, I hate the blood sucking advertisers and most of their wares.
Great links for information on marketing and children:
Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/
Parents for Ethical Marketing http://parentsforethicalmarketing.org/
Commercial Alert http://www.commercialalert.org/
Center for a New American Dream http://www.newdream.org/
Recommended Reading:
- Born to Buy: The Commercialized Culture and the New Consumer Culture(2004) by sociologist/economist Juliet Schor (five stars - this is fascinating and incredibly important - great book for any parent/educator and engrossing enough even to be a book club selection!)
- Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children from the Onsluaght of Marketing and Advertising (2005) by Psychiatrist Susan Linn
- Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2003) by Journalist Alissa Quart
- Kid Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood (1997) by Historian Gary Cross
- Also, I have not yet read it, but there is a brand new book (May 2007) out by Journalist Susan Gregory Thomas entitled, Buy, Buy, Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds. Here is the blurb:
According to reporter Thomas, modern marketers believe that “the moment a baby can see clearly, she becomes a consumer.” Indeed, as investigative journalist Thomas discovered, some marketers start earlier, with an array of fetal “education” gimmicks designed to broadcast music and vocabulary to the mother’s womb. Thomas interviewed a wide range of child development experts, product developers, marketing consultants and educators to write this well-researched exposé of the brave new world of American babies. Parents no longer believe that unstructured, baby-directed play and exploration is a valid use of baby’s time. Parents buy videos and toys marketed as tools so that baby’s every free moment can be a learning opportunity, even if there’s no evidence that babies learn anything from these products. The phenomenon of KGOY—kids getting older younger—has passed from tweens down to toddlers and lap babies. Younger and younger children are watching more and more television and videos, she argues, and identifying with more “licensed character” products. Some of the problem lies with today’s Gen-X parents, says Thomas, who’s one herself. Having grown up with latchkeys and divorced parents, with only television for comfort, they want to give their own children everything—and marketers know how to play to their insecurities. Thomas ends with Pooh’s plea for “Doing Nothing”—an idea many parents may be relieved to embrace.
I will probably not get to this book until the end of the year, so if you read it first, please post a comment/review. I’d be really curious to hear your thoughts!