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Ads And Kids: How Young Is Too Young?
In simpler times, when a mere $100 million a year was spent on advertising directed at children, we wondered how to raise a generation that would not define itself by its possessions. Monitoring and limiting kids' TV diets seemed to be a good solution. Now 10 years later, in a world where $2 billion is spent annually to target juvenile consumers, the stakes are higher. Marketing strategies measure humans in terms of their lifelong consuming value ($100,000 per person is the going estimate), and advertising is everywhere.
A child wakes up in her Disney character pajamas, rolls out of her Barney sheets, her toothbrush, toothpaste and perhaps even her soap covered in cute licensed characters. Gathering up her Pokemon cards and strapping on her Rugrats backpack, she heads off to school. But the commercialism does not stop in the schoolyard.
In America these days, the schoolhouse is the biggest ad space of all. Channel One's news broadcasts are provided free to schools who must promise that the students will watch the many commercials; ZapMe! computers fill students' screens with ads while they collect and sell valuable demographic data on users; soda companies make exclusive deals forcing schools to become pop-pushers to get more money; fast-food franchises take over cafeterias; hallways, posters and book covers all become billboards for the highest bidder.
Some countries are taking steps towards protecting children from ads: many European governments have placed restrictions on television commercials targeting kids. But America, the world leader in consumerism, commercialism and marketing technique, is eagerly exporting the corporate seduction of kids.
From animated princesses stuck in ancient gender roles, to sodas packed with caffeine, the U.S. is sending its kids' culture around the world as it finds more and more ingenious ways to sell it at home. Considering the rugged terrain ahead, MediaChannel affiliates report on the dangers of kid marketing and the strategies for fighting back.
- Donnell Alexander and Aliza Dichter, "Marketing to Kids" editors.
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The Drug Of A New Generation
Following the lead of tobacco companies, soft drink and coffee marketers look to "perpetuate the market" early on, and warnings against caffeine consumption have become something from the past. Hyper-caffeinated sodas are the best-selling product at grocery stores, counting for about $10 billion annually. From Starbucks to the local school cafeteria, kids are the prime market for these compelling beverages spiked with something extra. From The Nation magazine, September 27 1999
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Young Minds For Sale
The problem is not just the pervasiveness of marketing campaigns aimed at children, but the skill with which they wield their charms. As advertisers are making their pitches to younger and younger audiences, many of whom are just learning to walk, companies are beckoning to psychologists for assistance. Miriam Zoll reports that while some are heeding the call to penetrate the most impressionable market of all, a coalition is forming to declare the practice unethical. From The Media Channel, April 5 2000
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Pokemon As Poker, Man
Here's the gambit: Make prized possessions of the trading cards you sell, and bet that hordes of children will put their money on your product before all others. The people behind the Pokemon craze correctly saw toys, video-game options and films as potential winnings. A recent lawsuit (dismissed when the lawyers discovered a conflict of interest) sought to fight the marketers by accusing them of bringing gambling to the playground. From AlterNet/Independent Media Institute, November 12 1999
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Advertising 101
Advertisers have taken advantage of financially strapped schools with the audacity of extortionists, providing desperately needed money and resources for the price of children's eyeballs. Channel One offers commercial-laden newscasts, math books are filled with brand names, and school buses are sold as billboards. When the scholastic environment is saturated by companies who pay the schools to make their brand names central to kids' lives, teaching media literacy may be the only remedy. From Z Magazine/ZNet, August 23 1999
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Same Girl, Different Color
Coming soon, to a country near you: 1930s American ideals! The skin color of the female characters in Disney's recent animated films — and in their heavily licensed merchandise — may be different, but underneath the newly multi-racial surfaces they're still happy homemakers looking for men. Not to mention an animated working class (hardworking, but dirty and uncivilized) serving the rich and privileged and never questioning its subordinate position. World be warned, says New Internationalist's Kathi Maio. When pre-fab culture is the export, hide your children. From New Internationalist, December 1 1998
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You Can't Sell A Book By Its Cover
But you can brand a product. Cover Concepts saw their results work 20 times the norm for print advertising when the company started selling ad space on the text-book slip-covers mandated at many schools. Todd Morman's interview with Cover Concept's CEO provides a case study on how to exploit a captive audience. From Stay Free!, April 1 1997
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Warming To New Media
In contrast to the relative cool of television advertising, which engages children as passive consumers who watch and listen, Internet marketing engages kids interactively, making young Web surfers more resonant targets and richer sources of valuable demographic data. The Media Awareness Network offers a primer on selling in cyberspace, where strategies for reaching the young are more advanced than you might know. From Media Awareness Network,
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Alert! Commercials Everywhere!
Did you know that soda companies are sponsoring public schools? That in-school ZapMe! computers mine precious demographic data from unsuspecting youngsters? From reports on the near omnipresence of advertising in public schools to updates on the fight against the ad invasion at home, Commercial Alert provides news, reports and resources that arm citizens for the fight against a future where consumerism is mainlined to the populace almost from birth. From Commercial Alert,
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Let's Get Critical
Looking for ways to give your kids the critical skills to withstand the onslaught of marketing? "Teach Kids," MediaChannel's media literacy tool kit, provides a range of weapons useful in the fight against consumerism. From the downloadable material of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project to the pop-culture interaction offered by Australia's Feedback e-zine, there're teachers' guides, online games, and much, much more! From The Media Channel, February 15 2000
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Cozy Classroom Consumption
What do students think about the programming on the free, in-school news station Channel One? In this article, reprinted from Educational Leadership magazine, Roy Fox reports that kids are even less guarded when viewing ads in school — often not even able to distinguish between news and ads. From Stay Free!, April 1 1997
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Dominating The Schoolhouse Market
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor Alex Molnar shows that "commercial activities now shape the structure of the school day, influence the content of the school curriculum and determine whether children have access to a variety of technologies." His lecture from U. of Wisconsin's recent conference on the commercial transformation of America's schools, examines, in scholarly detail, marketers' plans to takeover the classroom. From The Education Policy Studies Laboratory, March 26 2000
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Lying In Wait
Channel One could be the dividing line over which the media-literacy movement splits. So teachers attending a literacy workshop in Minnesota were shocked to find that Channel One and the corporate giants who they considered the problem had actually underwritten their gathering. Sponsorship is the latest tactic in advertisers' efforts to control classrooms. How educators respond could (re)define the media-literacy movement. From AlterNet/Independent Media Institute,
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AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE
MEDIA.
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FAST FACTS
Over $2 billion per year is spent on advertising to kids.
42% of Channel One's 12-minute broadcast is ads and filler.
The teen audience of Channel One is 50 times the MTV teen audience.
Children's spending has roughly doubled every ten years for the past three decades.
In 1997, kids influenced $188 billion of their parents' purchases.
In 1997, kids aged 4-12 spent $23.4 billion.
In 1998, kids aged 12-19, spent roughly $94 billion of their own money.
It's estimated the average child sees between 20,000-40,000 commercials every year.
At six months of age, babies are forming mental images of corporate logos and mascots.
Stats from the Center For A New American Dream
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U.S. ACTION ALERTS
• Protect Student Privacy
Support pending legislation requiring schools to obtain a parent's consent before allowing corporations to gather market research data from kids.
• Say No To Teletubbies!
Join Commercial Alert's campaign to get this heavily-licensed toddler programming off the air. |
FIGHT BACK
Lobby: Ralph Nader on the FTC's duty to protect kids from ads.
Read: Jean Kilbourne on "Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising"
Write: Contact information for companies and organizations involved in schoolhouse marketing.
Organize: Resources and guidelines for community action against commercialism.
Compare: Take this survey to test the level of commercialism in your community.
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THE EXPERTS
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