Posted on December 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has released their annual list of the toys that most outrageously over-advertise to children. These are the products that clutter the channels most watched by children and the CCFC recommends parents not reward their efforts by buying their products.
Posted on November 3, 2011 at 3:59 pm
The headline is inflammatory but the facts are truly disturbing. Business Insider’s slideshow on how companies get kids hooked on brands starts, believe it or not, prenatally, and continue through “alca-pop” candies and tobacco companies’ 18th birthday gifts to teens.
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 3:55 pm
USA Today has an important article on new technologies for marketing to kids.
With the use of new, kid-enchanting technologies, are savvy marketers gaining the upper hand on parents? Are toy marketers such as Ganz, food marketers such as McDonald’s and kid-coddling apparel retailers such as 77kids by American Eagle too eager to target kids?
At stake: $1.12 trillion. That’s the amount that kids influenced last year in overall family spending, says James McNeal, a kid marketing consultant and author of Kids as Consumers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children. “Up to age 16, kids are determining most expenditures in the household,” he says. “This is very attractive to marketers.”
Children who play on websites like Webkinz are bombarded by ads. The article follows one girl who repeatedly clicks on an ad for Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, not because she has any interest in the film but because clicking on the link is the way she earns accessories for her virtual characters.
“We occasionally introduce limited-time promotions so that our Webkinz World members can enjoy fun, unique activities and events,” says Susan McVeigh, a Ganz spokeswoman.
That corporate doublespeak is appalling. The purpose of these “limited-time promotions” is so that children can be targeted for ads, and this is all within the context of a site that is itself an enormous interactive ad for Ganz. Parents should be aware of the new avenues for trying to sell to kids and should have continuing conversations with children and tweens about the way that marketing is designed to make them think they want things that are not really important. Or, in the case of the “Judy Moody” movie, to see movies that ARE a bummer.
Posted on July 16, 2011 at 8:00 am
I really like “How I Met Your Mother,” and am delighted that older episodes are running in syndication. But it is jarring to see that background shots have been updated to insert new advertising material. NPR’s Monkey See blog reports that a billboard in one of the episodes has been digitally altered to insert an ad for the new (and awful) movie, Zookeeper. Marc Hirsh writes
The general practice isn’t new, but there’s something about this particular example that’s especially irksome, and not just because it’s been done in the service of a Kevin James talking-gorilla movie.
He points out that this is particularly annoying in the context of HIMYM, which is always so explicitly time-specific.
More than most sitcoms, Mother has a rather explicit time frame. How explicit? Well, the very first line of the episode is, “Kids, in the spring of 2007…” So it’s not an ideal candidate to layer in an advertisement for a movie released in July 2011, is what I’m saying.
I understand that advertisers are frustrated because audiences skip commercials by clicking the channel or fast-forwarding on TIVO. But the answer can’t be intrusive ads and product placement that distract us from the story, especially retroactively.
Posted on February 5, 2011 at 8:00 am
I love this commercial!
Thanks to my friend Sammie Young for sharing this with me.
