Marketing to kids seems to be a controversial topic with many differing opinions. The question of how to ethically market to such a young group of people, but it brings the question, why is marketing to kids valuable to companies? Kids are easily influenced by the things they see, making them the easiest target audience out of any other age group. In 2015 in the US alone, there were 53.7 million children aged 5–11 available as potential customers to these companies. Thats a large group of people that companies would be missing out on revenue from. It’s also easier to get younger kids familiar with brands at earlier stages in life to build a sense of “loyalty” and familiarity with the company. Kids who buy products have more influence, at younger ages kids tend to focus on having more materialistic items to show off to their friends. An example of this would be things such as silly bandz, rainbow loom, fidget spinners, or the recent pop-its. Its generates craze and excitement over a product that may not even have good quality and has no real basis. Because kids are an easy target and can be tricked, is it fair to be influencing them like this at such a young age?
The amount of advertising and marketing Americans are exposed to daily has risen over the past decade; studies show, that on average, people living in urban communities see up to 5,000 ads per day. This is especially true for children considering they influence the most in other peoples lives. The spending of industries on marketing towards kids has risen and its because parents are willing to buy. Now that we see many families are getting smaller and more homes are having dual income, parents have the money to spend on buying these cheap toys that make their kids happy. In kids minds these type of products are must have items, and the power of nagging kids is a lot more persistent and powerful thank we often give it credit for.
Theres also the issue of “loyalty” I mentioned earlier that hooks kids into the marketing ploys of companies. In 1991 a study was done with pre-schoolers to test brand recognition in young kids. 12 brand logos were shown that included some for kids and some for adults, including logos for cigarettes. The kids were able to remember most brands, but the ones that stuck the most were Disney and the cigarette brands which. Approximately 30% of 3-year-old children correctly matched the cigarette brand. This study shows that kids do in fact remember what they’re shown on TV and it can resonate with them. Therefore, if brands wanted to build loyalty in companies amongst the public, they could do it with kids as young as around three years old.
Marketing to kids is not a bad thing however, its how things get sold and things get used, its an inevitable part of the economy that keeps it going. However the issue is how the media is portrayed said advertisements and commercials. If the target audience in the market is young children, it should be the number one priority and responsibility to keep them safe and away from bad influences. If information on children is captured, companies need to keep that safe. Especially in cases where marketing for online video games are concerned, where kids may use their personal emails or names. 
The younger kids are the future of the world, and that being said things need to be implemented to teach them to become informed consumers as they start off on the media earlier and earlier. Content marketing will only continue to grow as time goes on. However instead of encouraging kids to buy things, we should be pushing them in the direction of becoming thoughtful consumers who are able to compare products easily. Being ethical in marketing practice is something the media needs to become more aware of as younger kids make up a large majority of sales.
Hey Julianna,
While I do acknowledge the existence and questionable ethicality of targeted marketing, particularly to children, I feel hard pressed to acknowledge it as a long standing issue. As long as the marketing is not invading privacy, no matter the age group, targeted marketing is essentially only attempting to appeal to the desired audience. Especially in the way expressed in your post, it seems like the ethicality is not questioned at all. Instead, there is a larger focus on brand recognition and the sheer volume of advertisements that exist.
Targeted adverts toward adolescents usually can only amount to acknowledging the existence of brands. This is primarily due to the fact that kids do not have any money, and only can acquire goods via adults, whether it be parents or otherwise. Building up loyalty helps preserve the future of companies, because if those corporations still exist when the kids are developed enough to make their own purchases, recognising the brand increases their chances of buying it.
I believe more focus needs to be put on economic knowledge. While it is true that targeted advertisements, or advertisements are not going away any time soon, the capital market will not either. Adverts are the primary way for corporations and industries to get their name out there and make sales, which is only truly possible when approaching the right market. If possible, it should be reasonable for kids to engage with money and products earlier rather than later. This will increase their financial maturity and make them smarter consumers as they move towards adulthood and consumerism.
Techopedia. (2012, November 12). What is targeted marketing? – definition from Techopedia. Techopedia.com. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://www.techopedia.com/definition/23796/targeted-marketing#:~:text=Targeted%20marketing%20is%20the%20process%20of%20identifying%20customers,a%20marketing%20strategy%20aimed%20at%20that%20specific%20group.
Hi Julianna,
Even if this tactic has been around for a while (since the 70s!), I still agree that Advertising companies have found the youth market as a highly profitable niche. In 2018, kids advertising spending amounted to 4.2 billion U.S. dollars worldwide. Expenditure is forecast to reach 4.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2021, out of which an estimated 1.7 billion is projected to stem from digital advertising formats. With the advancement of technology and the many different electronic devices readily available to the American youth, the advertisements that children have access to affect the way in which they develop. Advertisements tell children that they should have materialistic values in life and encourage consumerism from an early age. Because children are surrounded by screens and advertisements, their interests are being swayed to what the advertisement companies want them to purchase, without knowing that the commercial intends to persuade them to make purchases. I not only like how you bring up some of these concerns but also a proposal that there should be more guidance for kids to be, “thoughtful consumers who are able to compare products easily.” Content marketing, as you said, will always be around and will only evolve. So, it is important to talk to kids, at a very early age, about what is advertising and what is other types of media content: games, entertainment, news, etc. Helping them understand that there are different media that all are created for different reasons is a great way to build a media literacy foundation in advertising. It also can help them to become savvier as consumers and more resistant to the pressures to be “cool.” Really interesting topic!
Guttmann, A. (2020, April 7). Global Kids AD spend 2021. Statista. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/750865/kids-advertising-spending-worldwide/
Julianna!
I have witnessed firsthand just how much value is placed upon cheap, entertaining products for younger children. As a summer camp counselor, my campers (aged 5-10) would bring their pop-its into camp in order to trade them with others. Not only did their pop-its determine their status amongst their peers, but it enticed several of my other campers to persistently request their own from their parents. Marketing is structured in a precise way with the goal of catching the minds of younger, more impressionable individuals. It works not only because of their social awareness but also because of the influence it has on their inclusion with other children their age. Peer influence is a significant factor that often goes overlooked when discussing the impact of commercialism. Furthermore, looking at an article on the effect of advertisements on adolescents, I discovered that companies in the United States market to adolescents and children with an annual expenditure of more than $15 billion, or around two and a half times what was spent in 1992. They now have sway over $600 billion in spending. According to child psychologist Allen Kanner, Ph.D., teens are inundated with so much marketing about the importance of brands to identity and image that it has changed the way they socialize with each other, interact with adults, and view themselves and the world. According to Kanner, the problem is that marketers exploit this fascination by persuading kids to use materialistic values to define who they are and aren’t. Marketers pervert the spontaneous process of building identity by attaching self-worth to brands, he argues. “More naturally, you might create your identity around, say, doing good in the world or pursuing a career out of a passion,” he continues. With this stacking evidence in mind, it is important to recognize and monitor what advertisements are being exposed to our youth.