The Hard Sell: Marketing To Kids

From Babies In Front Of The TV To Teens On Laptops, How The Advertising Industry Targets The Vulnerable

(CBS)  The partnership looked good on paper: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services teaming up with Dreamworks animation to use the widely popular movie character Shrek to get kids off the couch.

"Get up and play an hour a day," the character tells kids in a public service announcement.

But beyond the public service, the studio's also going after promotion — through tie-ins with more than 70 food products, some healthy, some junk, CBS News anchor Katie Couric reports for the series "Gotta Have It: The Hard Sell To Kids."

It is an irony not lost on one late-night TV show.

The Colbert Report said: "Shrek gets an additional tip of my hat for spreading his message of health through joint ventures with Snickers, Pop Tarts, Skittles, Cheetos."

But it's no laughing matter to Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist and co-founder of the campaign for a commercial-free childhood. She thinks Shrek's public service ads should be pulled.

What’s wrong with using Shrek to encourage kids to exercise?

"It’s incredibly hypocritical," Linn says. "Using Shrek to promote exercise on the one hand and pitch for junk food on another hand is emblematic of the ways that the food industry, the advertising industry … and in this instance, the government are actually selling kids out."

From Hummers in Happy Meals to American Express gift cards just for teens, today's kids are inundated with advertising — some that even targets the youngest children.

The age 0-to-3 market — how much does that represent to corporate America?

"It’s a $20 billion market," says Susan Gregory Thomas, an investigative journalist and author of the book, "Buy, Buy Baby."

She says Generation X parents who sat their newborns in front of TVs hoping to make them geniuses only turned them into consumers.

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Watch Katie's extended interview with Susan Gregory Thomas.
Check out resources for parents.

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"The only thing they were getting was how to recognize characters," she says. "It's Dora. It's Elmo. The only other scenario in which they’re going to encounter these characters is in a scenario in which that character is trying to sell them something. Backpacks, Band-Aids, toothbrushes."

And as the kids grow up, they're hooked up — to technology that makes them even easier targets for marketers looking to tap the family checkbook.

"Increasingly, we're seeing kids influence family restaurants. Family vacations. We even have research that shows that more and more kids are influencing on the family car and the family home," says Paul Kurnit, a Pace University professor of marketing.

But isn't it up to parents to help their children become discriminating consumers?

"It's unfair and naïve to expect that parents, on their own, are gonna be able to do a great job of coping with this," Linn says. "They need help. They need help from the government."

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin agrees. He's proposed a bill that would give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to restrict unfair advertising to children.

"Right now, the Federal Trade Commission has more authority to regulate advertising to a parent than it does a child," Harkin says. "That doesn’t make any sense."

What's at stake, child advocates say, is more than just money.

"Advertising and marketing is a factor in childhood obesity, in eating disorders, precocious, irresponsible sexuality, youth violence, underage drinking, underage tobacco use," Linn says.

Critics warn that as it's turning our kids into mini-shopoholics, it's also teaching them the wrong values — that it's not about who you are, but what you have.

[ecuadoriana]

BachMom1 you stumbled on to a good thing with that DVD. I've been wondering for a long while when it was that parents stopped being parents. If they're not teaching their kids what are & aren't appropriate choices starting at infancy then how will they expect their kids to make correct choices as the options get tougher & the consequences more dangerous?

It's rather sad that parenting has become such a lost skill that there has to be instructional DVDs to teach parents how to do their job!

The first thing new parents need to do is accept that this is now the most important job in their life & that for the next 18+ yrs they're going to have to accept the fact that they are no longer #1.

The parents I see are just as, if not more so, spoiled & self centered as their kids! I love watching moms shoving doors open using the stoller, or trying to maneuver shopping carts overloaded with junk food, with one hand because they won't hang up the d*mn cell phones long enough to concentrate on what they're doing. Either talk on the phone or shop! Don't do both at the same time. Grocery shopping is a great opportunity to talk with kids about healthy food choices.

Also, if kids aren't taught to concentrate on the task at hand, then parents can't be surprised that the kids won't concentrate on school work! They've learned from the parent's multi-tasking, hurry up to get no where mentality!

I believe the whole ADD phenom began when parents began "multi-tasking".

[bachmom1]

Like many issues, parents can't always claim "no control" when it comes to our kids behavior, attitudes and choices. There's an interesting DVD called "Selling Children: How Media Affects Kids" just released by Connect with Kids, which aims to empower parents with information to help our kids lead healthy lives and make good choices. The program provides an interesting perspective on how the media and advertising creates these non-stop wants, and how kids, in particular teens, can learn to decode the messages. It doesn't get any easier when our kids move from wanting the latest sweetened cereals to needing tanning salons, make up and an endless list of products and services. More information on the program is online at Connect with Kids website -- very interesting.

[ecuadoriana]

I'm hearing you, haqtalab!

So many times people have said to me "I can't afford to eat healthy food", "I can barely make ends meet", "We both have to work just to survive" & a ton of other similar excuses. Yet, despite of all their professed poverty they have at least 3 TVs & cable (not to mention every other big ticket gadget they have no time to use because they're too busy working to pay off the credit card bills!)!

When I take an evening walk along the shore I see the blue glow from all the TVs in the homes built on the beach. I'm checking out the sunset- they're living on beautiful ocean front property checking out "Survivor"! Yuck.

Often I read information on bugeting, saving & investing. Financial experts always suggest keeping a monthly budget account to keep track of expenses. Always on their "Monthly Budget" sheet samples, listed along with important expenses like work wardrobe, food, water, electric & rent, there will be the catagory for "Cable Subscription"- as though now paying for TV is considered a "normal" monthly expense!

How can someone cry "poor mouth" when they pour their money out their _ss & into the TV!?

How can humans consider TV a necessity of life? It's someone else's life! It's actors getting paid a lot of money to pretend to live an exciting sit-com life!

To paraphrase an old expression: No one ever laid on their death bed saying "I wish I had watched more TV".

[haqtalab]

Never wonder why low income kids suffer more diseases of obesity? To be radically over-simplistic, how do they get fat if they can't afford food? Because all the advertising that it pitched in their communities are from the unhealthy sources, sodas, snack foods, fast food chains, etc. The message is so all around them, that resistance is HARD!
My only comment of criticism to Susan Linn is one of lack of faith in the government to monitor the special interest groups that bombard Washington to keep their interests a priority. When we are talking about big business, and make no mistake, this is BIG BUSINESS, the little guy, the average family, will have to watch out for themselves.

[haqtalab]

The people giving comments above are not seeing the whole problem. Mmales comments that there are many more serious social problems instead of fretting about "yuppy" problems, such as the high percentage of Americans living below the poverty line. However, you fail to remember that, in spite of the impoverished conditions, 9 out of 10 Americans, unless they are outright homeless and therefore without electricity, have a tv in the home. They may not have money to purchase mindless items from the mall, but they are still watching the same mindless advertising on tv, it is shaping their vision of the world in which they/we live. They are still picking up the same precocious sexual attitudes and dress codes (mostly for our young girls) and the same ideas of violence acceptably masquerading as manhood. Not only are they watching tv, they are mostly watching tv, instead of going out and doing some real life action, partly due to the low income circumstances that prevents them from affording such activities.
Not only are these inappropriate spokespeople to be found in tv ads, but also in school placed advertising. The children are virtually trapped in an environment that forces to see things from a particular perspective (i.e. that of the marketers/advertisers) for most of their waking hours.

[haqtalab]

The people giving comments above are not seeing the whole problem. Mmales comments that there are many more serious social problems instead of fretting about "yuppy" problems, such as the high percentage of Americans living below the poverty line. However, you fail to remember that, in spite of the impoverished conditions, 9 out of 10 Americans, unless they are outright homeless and therefore without electricity, have a tv in the home. They may not have money to purchase mindless items from the mall, but they are still watching the same mindless advertising on tv, it is shaping their vision of the world in which they/we live. They are still picking up the same precocious sexual attitudes and dress codes (mostly for our young girls) and the same ideas of violence acceptably masquerading as manhood. Not only are they watching tv, they are mostly watching tv, instead of going out and doing some real life action, partly due to the low income circumstances that prevents them from affording such activities.
Not only are these inappropriate spokespeople to be found in tv ads, but also in school placed advertising. The children are virtually trapped in an environment that forces to see things from a particular perspective (i.e. that of the marketers/advertisers) for most of their waking hours.

[ecuadoriana]

Strange thing that another article in CBS news is about how kids are diagnosed as autistic when they don't make eye contact. Hmmm... that sounds like almost every adult I know.

In the bank there is a TV bolted from the ceiling. Everyone stands in line gazing up at the flickering god (great time for a bank robber to burst in the front door!). In the hospital waiting area, & even in the examing rooms, there are TV sets! Waiting to have your car repaired or your hair done- watch TV. Some restaurants have TVs. TV screens in the cars to keep the kids "occupied" (wouldn't want them to look out the window & observe the world around them, play "Eye Spy" or "License Plate Tag"- that would actually encourage them to think!).

While people are busy staring into the flickering blue eye of the God of Consumerism, they are not making eye contact with the other humans around them. No one talks to each other unless it's to make comments about what's on the screen!

Is it any wonder kids pop from the womb already lacking the skill of eye contact, but can readily stare at shiny, flickering, spinning lights!!!

[ecuadoriana]

"It's unfair and naove to expect that parents, on their own, are gonna be able to do a great job of coping with this," Linn says. "They need help. They need help from the government."

Good grief! The parents don't need help from the government- they need to help themselves by taking their job as parent seriously & doing the job!

They need to stop making TV the #1 priority in the home over homework, conversation, chores, family games, reading. Shutt off the d*mn TV & get off your butts. Better still- get rid of ALL the TVs in the house!

Next step- don't take them to the mall or any other store solely for the purpose of buying more stuff. The phrase "Let's go shopping!" needs to be banished from your vocabulary. 5 yr olds can rattle off the names of every TV character & video game, but can't remember their own address! Go to the park, the library, the museum instead.

When they whine for something nip it in the bud immediately by saying "No" & following it through. I want to barf every time I hear a parent say to their kid "If you stop screaming/whining/crying I'll take you to Mcdonalds/the toy store."

Is this hard work? Sure. But that's your job! You chose the job of parenthood when you got pregnant. Don't like it? Then stop cranking out more kids!

[skippy1956]

I know from experience with a two year-old daughter and seven year-old niece that commercials seem to attract my children's attention; more than the actual show.

I feel that commericals are good and bad for attracting children towards various habits, but it is still the responsibility of the parent to be involved. Using TV or DVD's as the "baby-sister" is not raising our children. Raising our children is looking into creative activities that involve both the parent and child amd discussing the child's thoughts (Not telling them what is wrong directly, but discussing options and ideas to encourage the child to see right from wrong.).

Your programing is doing a good job, and hopefully individuals we see that marketing towards childrren is only a small part of a problem, if you believe it is a problem. The biggest problem is unsupervised children without adult interaction and representation.

Children follow the examples set before them. more posaitive parential involvement is needed.

[jairod]

mmales: Virtue takes its root from the same word for virility. A child will grow up doing what it has learned from its parents (or, parent). If the parent is not one to take his responsibiity seriously, the child will know this and take for himself other examples by which to grow into a mature adult (given the examples set before him). If a parent doesn't care about the thing the child sees and hears and does, the child will grow up thinking that everybody is the same and so he will grow up uncaring about not only himself, but about anyone else, including his own children. And so the cyucle is perpetuated.

[mmales-2009]

We have 5 million kids who live in homes with incomes below HALF the poverty level, 200,000 children and teens who are confirmed victims of physical or sexual abuse every year, and one in four youths growing up with parents who are alcoholics or drug addicts. How did national news become obsessed over shallow yuppie frettings like whether some kid sees a Shrek advertisement? Parents, if you%u2019re concerned about whether your kid is materialistic, drinks, smokes, gets fat, etc., ignore this escapist junk and look at your OWN examples. If you--the parent--drink, smoke, do drugs, are obese, are one of the 11 million grownups who get medically unnecessary cosmetic surgeries every year, buy the latest fashions, don%u2019t exercise, etc., YOURSELF, you multiply many-fold the odds your kids will follow your example. Parents who are violent and unstable put their kids at even more at risk. Fortunately, most parents set reasonably good examples, and their kids are fine. Those who don%u2019t, quit whining, ignore news reports like this that enable you to blame everything on ads and pop culture, and shape up.
- Mike Males, YouthFacts.org