Marketing to Kids

1. Marketing to Kids They might not make as much as adults, but they still spend $$$…

2. Important Demographic • Kids have their own purchasing power • Kids influence parents' buying choices • Kids are the adult consumers of the future

3. Industry spending on advertising to children

4. Parents are spending more on their kids • Families of today are smaller than ever • Dual incomes families and delaying children until later in life. This means that families have more money to spend • Feelings of guilt influence spending decisions as busy parents substitute gifts for time spent with families

5. “Pester Power” Children can now nag their parents into buying things they might not have otherwise. Marketing to kids is all about creating “pester power”

6. Psychology and Marketing With the help of psychologists, advertisers now have in-depth insight to children's developmental, emotional and social needs at different ages. Using research that analyzes children's behaviour, fantasy lives, art work, and dreams, companies are able to create sophisticated marketing techniques to reach the young.

7. Brand Name Loyalty Marketers plant seeds of brand recognition in children at very young ages in the hopes that these seeds will grow into a lifetime relationship. The Center for a New American Dream said, “babies as young as six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize hundreds of brand logos.”

8. Interesting Quote "Brand marketing must begin with children. Even if a child does not buy the product and will not for many years... the marketing must begin in childhood."James McNeal, The Kids Market, 1999

9. “Buzz Marketing" • Another technique marketers use is to find peers that kids look up to and have them use or wear their product in order to create a hype around it. “Buzz” can help a company to “successfully connect with the savvy and elusive teen market” by using these idols to give their products cool status.

10. Marketing in Schools School used to be a haven for children, protecting them from the advertising and consumer messages that are so prominent in our society. Due to budget cuts, school boards are beginning to allow corporations access to students in exchange for money, computers, and educational materials.

11. Marketers Exploits • Sponsored educational materials. For example, a Kraft "healthy eating" kit to teach about America's Food Guide (using Kraft products). • Supplying schools with technology in exchange for high company visibility. • Exclusive deals with fast food or soft drink companies to offer their products in a school or district. • Advertising posted in classrooms, school buses, or on computers in exchange for funds. • Contests and incentive programs. For example, the Pizza Hut reading incentives program in which children receive certificates for free pizza if they achieve a monthly reading goal. Or Campbell's Labels for Education project, in which Campbell provides educational resources for schools in exchange for soup labels collected by students.

12. Clip from Daria - “Fizz Ed” Ep.501

13. Marketers target Kids for Adult Entertainment Marketers are activly marketing entertainment meant for older audiences to children. In a report released in 2000, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed how the movie, music and video games industries routinely market violent entertainment to young children.

14. Movies The FTC did a study on 44 films rated "Restricted," and found that 80% were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans included TV commercials run during hours when young viewers were most likely to be watching. One studio representative said the following regarding a violent R-rated film, "Our goal was to find the elusive teen target audience, and make sure that everyone between the ages of 12 and 18 was exposed to the film."

15. Music CDs containing the "explicit-content" labels are being marketed to kids through extensive advertising in the most popular teen venues on television, radio, in print, and online.

16. Video Games More than 2 out of 3 video game companies regularly market Mature rated games (17 years and older) to kids. Marketing plans included advertising in media that would reach a large percentage of children under the age of 17.

17. Toys The FTC also reported that toys based on characters from mature entertainment are frequently marketed to kids. Mature rated video games are advertised in youth magazines and toys based on Restricted movies and M-rated video games are marketed to children as young as four.

18. Interesting Facts • Channel One's twelve-minute in-classroom broadcast features 2 minutes of commercials for every 10 minutes of news, is compulsory on 90% of the school days in 80% of the classrooms in 40% of U.S. middle and high schools. Companies pay up to $195,000 for a 30-second ad, knowing that they have a captive audience of 8 million students in 12,000 classrooms across the country. • In the 1960's, children influenced about $5 billion of their parents' purchases. By 1984 that figure increased ten-fold to $50 billion. By 1997 it had tripled to $188 billion. In 2000, children 12 and under influenced family purchases to the tune of $500 billion. • It's estimated the average child sees more than 20,000 commercials every year - that works out to at least 55 commercials per day. • 47% of children have a television set in their bedroom. • At three years of age, before they can read, one out of five American children are already making specific requests for brand-name products. • Children who use the most media tend to be the least contented.