Marketing til tweens

Do we know how the marketing is affecting our children today and by what means are they doing so? Marketing is an ongoing and unstoppable force which is proven to be a goldmine; when you see a commercial in TV, the internet or you’re Iphone, you give it second and then get on with your life; do your children do the same? And can you as parent change that, and if, how?

Kids need guidance, not a fluffy colorful skirt.

When talking marketing focused on children, a lot of people can’t even begin to imagine how the media and corporations are exploiting children in an early age. Marketing is focusing in on children or as they also are called “tweens” (age between 8 and 12) more and more. They went from spending 100 million dollars on marketing in the 1990’s to spending more than 2 billion dollars in 2000. This shows that marketing is focusing in on the children in society, and why not, it is a goldmine and people love to make money. But how do they do it? Actually, they have called in the artillery in form of (well – paid) researchers and psychologists who gives them the knowledge of children’s “needs” and behavior patterns. This results in different marketing, targeting the children and parents when they least expect it, in a way parents have no chance to react to. For example they have all these brands, which is all over the place. Not even the schools are “safe” anymore. Due to the fact that technological enhancements and in general, school equipment is required in the schools for best possible education, the schools have to “brand” their school with different posters and such to sustain a prober income so they can afford the prober education for the children. So they use the schools to implant a seed of a brand, so the children are most likely to nag about it sometime later. This is just one of the many marketing strategies in the marketing world. But how are the children tricked that easily? Well. When you grow up and explore the world’s opportunities, you quickly find you influenced by the dancing and singing girl in the colorful and fluffy skirt on TV - She can do stuff you can’t plus people like her due to the fact that she is on the TV. What she does is not easy, so how do you pursue this dream of you “becoming” her – This is where the fine gentlemen at the marketing corporations will help you – suddenly you see the fluffy and colorful skirt popping up in a commercial, and then the nagging begins. This is a powerful tool for the marketers and what options do the parents have. Give the skirt to the girl and she will become popular among her friends with her new skirt or don’t give it to her and she will have nothing “interesting” to show her friends and thereby become an outsider in her class and/or school. But is this even enough? Is a skirt enough to satisfy this girls hunger to fit in and find her inner self? Most likely not, due to parent’s busy schedule they often “bribe” the kids with materialistic stuff to make up for their non existing parenting which leaves the kids wanting more. It is nearly impossible to give your kid what he/she wants (unless your name is Bill Gates) because the technology is moving too fast to follow. The skirt will be outdated one week later, when the girl on TV suddenly has this new skirt with sparkly stars on it. The girl won’t wear hear first skirt ever again. It’s an evil and expensive circle that never stops. So marketing corporations explore and exploit every possibility there is to affect your kid.