The following piece appeared in The Boston Parents Paper and won a national award from United Parenting Publications:
Cleanup in Aisles 1-18: Dr. Susan Linn helps parents ward off child-centered marketing
By Matthew S. Robinson
As a child psychologist, Dr. Susan Linn which treats children in her office with new hospital beds knows all too well the issues and difficulties facing young people (and their parents) today. The greatest among these, she says, is the overabundance of products and services that are specifically marketed to children and by implementing the strategies mentioned by the experts from Free Affiliate Marketing Business, the growth of the popularity was beyond the reach. It seems that you can’t go down a street or even a supermarket aisle without being stared at (or even stared down) by the faces of popular characters from television, movies, and video games. And whether it’s a Barbie book bag or a box of Spider-Man cereal, the message behind it is the same: Hey, Kid- You NEED this stuff- So you better nag and cry until you get it!
Apparently, the message is being heard. Child marketing has grown to a $15 billion a year industry that even has its own award – the Golden Marble! Many babies have been heard quoting ads among their earliest words and jingles from such mega-marketers as McDonalds (who spent $1.3 billion in advertising in 2002 alone) and Pepsico ($1.1 billion) can be heard echoing down many an elementary school hall.So what is a parent to do? Of course we all want our children to be happy and to not feel slighted or unloved. But can buying them things and capitulating to this growing commercial pressure really satisfy what they really need?
As associate director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston, Dr. Linn has taken it upon herself to do all she can to monitor and counter the overwhelming marketing pushes that companies direct at children. In her new book, Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood (The New Press), Dr. Linn discusses the dilemmas involved in this immoral industry and offers suggestions to parents regarding how they can deal with them responsibly while helping their children to do the same.
How did you come upon this issue?
It was permeating all aspects of my life. I was raising a daughter and I was also working with children. My work at the Judge Baker Center deals with helping mitigate the negative effects of the media on children. It became clear to me in the late ‘90 s that you couldn’t think of media any more without thinking about marketing. I just couldn’t get away from it! I saw it with my clients and also with my own daughter. I had a four-year-old introduce my to Brittney Spears and I found McDonalds toys in my office. I started writing about it because of Teletubbies, which came to the U.S. from Britain in 1998. It was marketed as a program that was educational for children for children as young as one, even though there was no research that such young children got anything out of it. The show came with all of these products. And that made it clear to me that it was really a marketing ploy. The notion of encouraging babies to watch television was so antithetical to all I had known about what was good for children that I had to do something. I come from a whole-child philosophy, so I was able to see how children were being inundated and effected in all aspects of their lives. And that philosophy encouraged me to start speaking up about it.
When did child-centered marketing become so pervasive?
I would say it was the 1980s. There has always been marketing to children, but in the ‘80’s there was a change and a confluence of factors. In 1978, the FCC concluded that it was unfair to market to children under eight because they can not understand persuasive intent and do not have the cognitive wherewithal to defend against it. They wanted to ban such advertising. But yielding to pressure from industry, the FCC lost their power to regulate such advertising. In 1984, Congress deregulated children’s television, so it became okay to develop a program for the sole purpose of selling a product. Within a year, all of the best-selling toys were linked to some kind of program. At the same time, electronic media began to grow, so suddenly there was cheap technology and things like VCRs and computers began entering the home, creating more ways for marketers to reach children and bypass parents. There were also more single-parent families and two-parent families where both parents were working, so the kids were often left home alone.
What age groups are most targeted and most susceptible and why?
Every age group and every segment of childhood is targeted – from babies to teenagers. They are targeted in different ways, but they are all targeted and they are all vulnerable. Preschool children can’t distinguish between commercials and programs and they tend to believe what people tell them. Until the age of eight, children can’t understand that they are being persuaded. Older kids are very susceptible to peer pressure and they want to do things their parents don’t like, as do teens. Teens are also concerned about their bodies and identities. It is endless! Today, the big push ins on “’Tweens.” That term came up in the mid-‘80s thanks to latchkey children – the children who were home alone and who were being recognized as a gold mine for marketers. The expenditures on child-focused ads in that after-school time slot rose dramatically during those years. The ‘90s were fairly prosperous, so people had money to spend on their kids and kids began to participate more in buying things. So every generation has had their issues. At the moment, I worry most about toddlers and babies. So many of these kids have their own televisions and that is just wrong! There is so much marketing geared toward babies and many of the products are touted as being educational, even though there is no research that proves they are. As a result, a generation is being raised to turn to the screen – whether it be television or computers – to calm and soothe them. People think that television is safe for their children – at least relative to being on the streets – but it isn’t.
What are some of the means marketers use to reach kids?
So many items are branded for kids and all of those characters are linked to other products, many of which are not particularly good for kids, such as sugary snacks and fatty foods. The characters become important to them and once that connection is made, it becomes a gold mine for marketers. For example, SpongeBob Squarepants was Kraft’s best-selling version of the macaroni and cheese in 2002. Every show and movie is linked to tons of products. A lot of companies also use stealth marketing and viral marketing, in which they co-opt word of mouth or market to kids who do not even know they are being targeted. One company called The Girls Intelligence Agency (the GIA) uses girls pajama parties for market research. They actually film the parties to look at consumer behavior! Proctor & Gamble has a marketing branch called Tremors that pays teens to distribute products to their friends. Marketing is leaping off the screen and tainting every part of children’s lives. And as the products make them cool, the kids are susceptible. Kids come to expect to receive things when they go to parties. There are also product placements. They are illegal in kids programs but they are legal in programs that kids watch and in movies and video games. For example, the characters on “Gilmore Girls” eat Pop Tarts for breakfast and wear bright yellow prom dresses for dinner. All kids like “America Idol” and Coke paid a lot of money to get the judges to drink Coke. In the game “Crazy Taxi,” the cab stops at Pizza Hut. It’s popular with advertisers because it’s what marketers call “sticky”- The kids stick to the game for a while and get the message over an extended period of time. There are even games that are entirely built around products! This country is in love with marketplace without any thought of the consequences of that- So why not exploit children to make a profit?
Who are the biggest offenders in terms of targeting children?
Coke and Pepsi. Parents used to be able to prevent or at least discourage kids from having soda at younger ages, but it’s now harder for parents to set limits, especially when there are soda machines in schools. McDonalds is also a big one.
As part of your research, you went to a marketing conference at the Yale Club in New York. What did you find there that shocked you the most and what did you learn that helped you the most?
It was the first time I had ever been to a conference that was about children where nobody talked about what was good for children. It never came up! And while that is not their job, it is worrisome that people who have so much power and money and influence over children never consider what is good for children. What children like came up a lot – because that is what sells – but nobody reflected on the impact of Ronald McDonald on children, other than the fact that he sells hamburgers.
How many commercials does the average child see in a year and what effect do they have?
On television alone, about 40,000. But it is so much more than commercials. Most of the programs are advertising for something and most of them also have product placements within them. Children are bombarded with marketing from the moment they wake up in the morning to the moment they go to bed at night and the marketing industry does everything it can to undermine parental control. In 1998, Western Media International did a study on nagging, They wanted children to nag their parents and they wanted to figure out how to make it more effective. They called it the “Nag Factor.” It is my understanding that the industry is not talking about nagging as much today, but it is still effective. They prey on children’s natural, healthy tendencies to want to carve out a place for themselves and differentiate themselves from their parents and, in so doing, they make the parents come out looking mean and incompetent.
Is there any safe or sacred place left or has marketing pervaded every aspect of life?
I think that what is happening is that there is starting to be blowback. People are starting to fight to reclaim childhood for children. Many schools are taking the soda machines out, for example. I work with a national coalition that works to support people who are trying to help children, like parents who take the televisions out of their children’s rooms. And that is a good start, but parents also need to see that it goes beyond the home. We need to look first of all at our own vulnerabilities to marketing and to cut down on how many televisions we own and when they are on. When we can, we need to set limits. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children watch no television until the age of two. And that is important because, the sooner kids start, the more they will watch and the more they will want to watch. There is no reason for babies to watch television or to have products with the brands on them. Diapers with characters on them lead to juice boxes with characters and they in turn lead to other junk foods and other products children simply do not need.
What is the role of society concerning this issue?
It has always been clear to me that children are not raised in a vacuum. But I also believe that society has an obligation to children to promote their health and well being. And what this industry is doing – and we are letting them do it – is undermining that. As I began to look into this and to see what the marketers themselves were saying it became more appalling to me. Ninety percent of marketers say that kids are marketed to in ways they do not even notice, and over half of them said there is too much marketing to kids and that, as a result, they are nagging too much and growing up too quickly. And that is why I wrote the book. People do not think much about marketing. The media is such a part of our lives and marketing – especially marketing to children – has escalated exponentially over the past 20 years. And it is still escalating, although in different ways.
Does petitioning local or even federal government agencies work?
A lot of it begins in the home, but parents can also look to their community and to begin to see it as a socio-political issue. We need to start looking at laws. Even in this age of deregulation, there are currently some bills in Congress that deal with these issues. There is even a bill in the works that would give the FCC the power to regulate children’s programming again. So yes, getting involved can make a difference.
How can parents come to see that spending money does not represent love? And how can they show their kids they love them without giving in to every material demand?
It’s not good for children to have all of their wishes fulfilled. Loving your kids does not mean giving in to them all the time. Life is a give and take, and children need to learn that. One of the reasons that children have parents is because they often do not have very good judgement and parents need to assert that judgement. Kids are told that things will make them happy, but studies have shown that things do not make us happy. Relationships are far more important. Telling kids that things make them happy is antithetical to most family and religious values. Marketing is even anti-democratic because it wants cradle-to-grave brand loyalty. It’s called “share of mind.” Marketers want to own children because they know that if they get the kids early, they will have them for life. So parents need to value the creative things their children do and encourage their children in creative play and other non-media-related pursuits. Dragging a mouse on the computer is not the same thing as painting and drawing with real art supplies. It’s prefabricated. There is a special value to making your own things and parents need to encourage that, because many kids now feel that what they make is not good enough. Parents need to find time away from commercials, which often means time away from any media. They need to do old-fashioned things that are not media- or market-based, whether it be family sports and games or playing dress-up or whatever they can find. Kids need time and space. Unfortunately, even places that once were public are now becoming marketed. The aquarium in Baltimore recently partnered with Animal Planet. So even when parents take their kids to a place that is meant to be educational in an effort to escape television, they are being told to go back home and watch television.
How can parents best use your book to guide and support them?
The book has a list of specific suggestions, but it also helps parents learn what is actually happening and to take a look at the marketing in their lives. Most people who read it are shocked at the depth and breadth of marketing in their children’s lives. So I hope people use it to educate themselves and to find out they are not alone and to use it as a springboard to talk to other people and to get involved with the groups listed in the back and to start addressing it in the home and in the community.
What else can be done?
We need to raise children who think. We do not need to raise brand-loyal children. We also need to get outraged. It is outrageous that Chem-lawn uses the mailing list from the United States Youth Soccer Association or that Coke gave a grant to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry! Kids pay for advertising not only with their money (or their parents’ money), but also with their health and well-being. Parents also need to think about what they are putting in front of their babies. Sesame Street may be educational, but it is now also linked to junk foods, including a partnership with McDonalds. It’s no longer a question of whether the content is beneficial. We now have to think of who else is involved and what that means. Especially with child obesity such a problem these days, we need to ask if the total package is good for children, not just the program itself. Advertising isn’t free. It has a HUGE cost!
RESOURCE LIST
Action Coalition for Media Education (www.acmecoalition.org) – An international strategic network linking media educators, students, health advocates, etc. in an effort to improve education about media.
Children Now: Children and the Media Program (www/childrennow.org/media/) – An organization dedicated to improving the quality of news and entertainment media for and about children.
Citizens’ Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools (www.scn.org/cccs) – A nonprofit organization focusing on research, education, lobbying, and action related to corporate marketing.
Common Sense Media (www.commonsensemedia.org) – A national organization of parents, educators, and children who are concerned about the quality of today’s media.
The Judge Baker Children’s Center (www.jbcc.harvard.edu) – A nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children with emotional and behavioral problems.
The Lion and Lamb Project (www.lionlamb.org) – An organization dedicated to stop marketing of violence to children.
Media Education Foundation (www.mediaed.org) – A nonprofit educational organization devoted to media research and resource production.
National Institute for Media and the Family (www.mediafamily.org) – A national resource for information about the impact of media on children and families.
Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children (www.commercialexploitation.org) – A national coalition of health care professionals, educators, businesses, and advocates working together to counter commercial exploitation of children.
TV-Turnoff Network (www.tvturnoff.org) – A national nonprofit group that encourages alternatives to television.
Matthew Robinson is a freelance journalist and early childhood educator from Boston whose work has appeared in over 100 international publications. He can be reached at teacherwriter@earthlink.net.
