The Commercialization of Children

I am posting a link to a documentary on the commercialization of children.  It is a growing epidemic and I found this film to be eye opening for any parent and teacher.  I have also included a reflection of the film.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/consuming-kids/

 

 

Consuming Kids:  The Commercialization of Children

Reflection

 

Marketing and Advertising are billion dollar industries.  Their job is to make us as Americans spend our money and buy the things that they are selling.  We consume or buy things we don’t need to survive.  We buy them because we are conned by marketing and advertising into thinking we cannot live without them.  We are the consumer.  But the marketing and advertising firms don’t gear their ploy to us as adults; they set their sights on the one weakness that we have our children.  Children have the influence when it comes to purchasing.  Marketing executives deliberately market to children.  Their sole purpose for this is to turn them into lifelong consumers.  The younger the child is sucked into the marketing ploy the greater chance they will be a loyal consumer for life.  <marketing execs also use what is called the Nag Factor – it’s sole purpose is to maximize the number of times a child will ask for something in order for their parent to give in.

            Children today are buried in Multimedia, using more than one medium at a time.  The marketing firm’s purpose is to mold children into thinking that life is about buying and getting things.  This way they become lifelong consumers.  In the 1980’s Reagan’s war on regulation fueled the FTC Improvement Act which took away the right of the government to regulate children’s advertising.  It opened the flood gates to marketing to children.  Through this era the thoughts of how to advertise to children changed.  There were no boundaries to dissecting children to figure out what type of marketing would work on them and how to implement it.  Now it was ok to create a cartoon for the sole purpose of selling a toy and the products that could go along with it.  In a Kid Power Conference – Youth Marketing Seminar the speaker was quoted as saying “Kids love advertising, it’s a gift, something they want”….. “Antisocial behavior in pursuit of a product is a good thing”….  “Brand them young” These marketers are child experts just like a child pedophile; they feed off of the insecurities of children. 

            The marketers have moved away from selling the product based on its characteristics to selling it with its social meaning.  What you buy is who you are.  You are shat you buy.  Values are being sold and the mentality that brands will make you happy.  A marketing company called Girls Intelligence Agency has created a focus group party for teenage girls, Slumber party in a box.  Girls are exploiting their friends without even knowing it.  There is also Nuero-marketing with a stimulus and an MRI of the brain done and a blink test where the number of times a child blinks is recorded when the child is watching the program.  The precise color, character, and music is used to engage and stimulate the child.  We are doing a disservice to our children.  The marketing world has also created the idea of what a tween is.  They have year after year defined this age group as younger and younger, gearing things that should be for 15 years old to 6 year olds.  Through marketing girls are manipulated into thinking that how you look is the only thing that matters and the things that you have make you who you are.  Boys are taught that toughness and violence is fun and necessary and that in a conflict you must fight.  The things that are geared towards children are inappropriate.  In the movie rating scale a once R rated movie in the 80’s is now a PG-13.  There is more sexy, language, and violence in things children watch than ever before.  Marketing companies routinely target 17 and under kids for movies, music, and games that their own rating and labeling system says are inappropriate.  Dreamworks Production Company used 9 yr olds to test for R-rated movies.  PG-13 movies almost always have toys that are marketed to 3, 4, and 5 yr olds.  The marketing industry is stealing the childhood of children.  Not only does this industry exploit children they have started to exploit infant and toddlers as well.

            The new age of marketing is the Toddler Industry.  The motto for this industry is Cradle to Grave Branding, owning them for life and getting the child as soon as possible.  This new way of marketing to parents is through educational advertising and marketing.  They prey on a parents wish to have a healthy intelligent child.  If the child doesn’t have this toy, watch this educational show, and such they will be behind in their development.  This billion dollar industry is a scam.  In actuality children 0 – 2 years who watch television have poor vocabulary skills.  It has been proven through research that TV can hurt an infant’s learning.  It is actually suggested that children 2 ½ and young have no screen media.  They need face to face interaction and problem solving play to develop properly.  We are transforming how children play by utilizing media.  Children have lost their ability to use their imagination.  The toys have been marketed and created for the child to imitate what they have seen on TV to play with the toys.  They have been taught that their imagination is not good enough.  Not only is this lack of imagination and problem solving play hurting the child’s creativity but there is a drastic rise in bi-polar disorders, anxiety, depression, ADHD, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity that can be linked to media and our countries addiction to it.  The correlation between the increase in the amount of media we are bombarded with everyday and the rise of Depression and Anxiety.  But despite all this research and concern the government does not think it is because of advertising to children. 

            The thought of government is that is the parents job to shelter and monitor what their children are exposed to.  We are the only developed country that does not regulate marketing to children.  The marketing industry is trying very hard to under mind the parents and it should be government’s job to help the parents out and hold the marketing industry accountable for the harm they are doing to our children.  What about the rights of our children.  There needs to be a swing in the support of our children.  There needs to be a beginning of a movement to protect our children from marketing.