No wonder kids just dont take no for an answer these days. They are encouraged by experts to nag, whine or throw a tantrum to get their parents to buy them what they want. Parents just dont stand a chance as sophisticated marketers appeal to the heart and minds of children and the wallets of their parents. If that sounds like a conspiracy theory then you are right. A recent report in Melbournes The Age highlighted the deliberate targeting of children as consumers by advertisers both in Australia and in the United States. Marketers may not be able to extract money from children but they have found that they are the way to their parents wallets. They just have to get kids to nag their parents hard enough and they will buy them what they want. One advertising company that uses this strategy has found that between 20 and 40 per cent of purchases of food, movies and games wouldnt have occurred unless a child pestered an adult. They know that kids pay attention to the advertising when they watch TV. Four types of parents have been identified through research: 1) bare necessities types, with no inclination to buy; 2) kids friends; 3) indulgers, often working mothers and separated fathers; and 4) conflicted, who dont want to buy but will. Advertisers know that different buttons work on the different groups however it seems that children nag the first group with the importance of the product and the power of persistence works with the last three groups. Marketers have always appealed to children to persuade their parents to loosen their purse strings. Putting toys in cereal packs, giving away toys with fast food and using sports heroes to promote anything from breakfast cereal to clothing are all tactics that were used in a less complicated age. However advertising to children and young people is changing as kids become more cynical and also they begin to use a greater variety of media. As the community has become more concerned with childrens nutrition and obesity companies such as McDonalds, Nestle, and Kellogg have reduced their advertising in childrens prime time. There is a realisation that children and young people are spending less time watching television and more time on their computers, their iPods or playing video games. Savvy new age marketers use others means to reach children and young people, including sponsorships, the Internet and word-of-mouth campaigns that operate in ways that are difficult for adults to detect. Meanwhile it is parents who tend to be the meat in the sandwich between nagging buy for me children and marketers who use increasingly sophisticated know how to tweak messages to make children want what they dont necessarily need. It is simplistic to blame parents for being too weak, too busy or too distracted to resist childrens persuasive ways. The days when children were seen and not heard are long gone so parents are now in the habit of taking childrens ideas on board. They just need to be more discerning about the messages from their children that they heed and be more confident that they know what is best for their kids. It would also help if parents were firm with their children and also differentiated between a genuine need and a want. Nevertheless, when you continually hear the same constant message from a child or young person then that message often becomes the norm, which makes pester power so powerful and difficult to resist. |
