Marketing ESL

Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car.

• By 1984, the Reagan administration had succeeded in dismantling the last vestiges of government oversight, completely deregulating children’s television.

CONSUMING KIDS:

BRAND NEW WORLD 11 Key Points 11 Discussion Questions 11 Assignments 12

CRADLE TO GRAVE 13 Key Points 13 Discussion Questions 14 Assignments 14

CRADLE TO GRAVE 13 Key Points 13 Discussion Questions 14 Assignments 14

With this in mind, we’ve structured the guide so that you have the option of focusing in depth on one section of the video at a time.

These assignments are designed to challenge students to show command of the material presented in the video, to think critically and independently about this material from a number of different perspectives, and to develop and defend their own point of view on the issues at stake.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.

Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.

Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.

Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.

Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.

• There are now more than 52 million kids under the age of 12 in the United States, representing a very powerful and lucrative demographic for marketers.

• There are now more than 52 million kids under the age of 12 in the United States, representing a very powerful and lucrative demographic for marketers.

• Children now spend $40 billion dollars of their own money and influence another $700 billion in spending annually – roughly the equivalent of the combined economies of the world’s 115 poorest countries.

• Children now spend $40 billion dollars of their own money and influence another $700 billion in spending annually – roughly the equivalent of the combined economies of the world’s 115 poorest countries.

• Corporate marketers have studied the shopping behavior of kids, including the so-called “nag factor,” to help maximize the number of times children ask their parents for a product.

• Corporate marketers have studied the shopping behavior of kids, including the so-called “nag factor,” to help maximize the number of times children ask their parents for a product.

• Corporate marketers have studied the shopping behavior of kids, including the so-called “nag factor,” to help maximize the number of times children ask their parents for a product.

• Corporate marketers have studied the shopping behavior of kids, including the so-called “nag factor,” to help maximize the number of times children ask their parents for a product.

• Corporate marketers have studied the shopping behavior of kids, including the so-called “nag factor,” to help maximize the number of times children ask their parents for a product.

• Children are now marketed to in unprecedented ways – through brand licensing, product placement, viral marketing, via schools, DVDs, video games, the internet, cell phones – so that there’s a brand in front of a child’s face virtually every moment of every day.

• Children are now marketed to in unprecedented ways – through brand licensing, product placement, viral marketing, via schools, DVDs, video games, the internet, cell phones – so that there’s a brand in front of a child’s face virtually every moment of every day.

• Because kids are now multi-tasking with media – simultaneously surfing the web, watching television, listening to their iPods, etc. – they are bombarded with over 3,000 commercial messages every day.

• Because kids are now multi-tasking with media – simultaneously surfing the web, watching television, listening to their iPods, etc. – they are bombarded with over 3,000 commercial messages every day.

• Because kids are now multi-tasking with media – simultaneously surfing the web, watching television, listening to their iPods, etc. – they are bombarded with over 3,000 commercial messages every day.

• In what the industry calls a “cradle-to-grave” strategy, marketers want to get to children early, often, and in as many places as they can – not just to sell them products and services, but to turn them into life-long consumers.

Discussion Questions 1) How have children’s purchasing power and influence increased, and why?

3) How have new technologies like the internet, iPods, cell phones, and 24-hour children’s TV programming made children more available – and vulnerable – to commercial messages?

• Things began to change in the early 1980s, as a result of a long battle between government regulators and businesses over policies designed to protect kids from excessive advertising.

• In a nutshell: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had tried to ban all advertising aimed at children eight and under, but the toy and cereal industries fought back and eventually won, convincing Congress to pass the FTC Improvement Act of 1980.

• In a nutshell: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had tried to ban all advertising aimed at children eight and under, but the toy and cereal industries fought back and eventually won, convincing Congress to pass the FTC Improvement Act of 1980.

• In a nutshell: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had tried to ban all advertising aimed at children eight and under, but the toy and cereal industries fought back and eventually won, convincing Congress to pass the FTC Improvement Act of 1980.

• In a nutshell: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had tried to ban all advertising aimed at children eight and under, but the toy and cereal industries fought back and eventually won, convincing Congress to pass the FTC Improvement Act of 1980.

• The FTC Improvement Act actually did the opposite of banning advertising to kids: it mandated that the FTC would no longer have any authority whatsoever to regulate advertising and marketing to children, leaving marketers virtually free to target kids as they saw fit.

• The FTC Improvement Act actually did the opposite of banning advertising to kids: it mandated that the FTC would no longer have any authority whatsoever to regulate advertising and marketing to children, leaving marketers virtually free to target kids as they saw fit.

• The FTC Improvement Act actually did the opposite of banning advertising to kids: it mandated that the FTC would no longer have any authority whatsoever to regulate advertising and marketing to children, leaving marketers virtually free to target kids as they saw fit.

• By 1984, the Reagan administration had succeeded in dismantling the last vestiges of government oversight, completely deregulating children’s television.

• By 1984, the Reagan administration had succeeded in dismantling the last vestiges of government oversight, completely deregulating children’s television.

• One result of deregulation was that it became possible to create a television program for the sole purpose of selling a toy, essentially turning kids’ shows into program-length toy commercials.

• The numbers show the overall impact of deregulation: In the two decades prior to deregulation, kids’ consumer spending increased at a modest rate of roughly 4% a year.

5) With the increase and growth of media-linked toys and products, there has been a rapid growth in children’s consumption.

And it is this conservative economic philosophy that continues to justify lax government oversight when it comes to advertising to kids today.

Draw up a list of key reasons you think this reasoning is either sound or wrong, and put together the most persuasive case you can against the best arguments on the other side.

What was the argument for regulation?

• Beyond advertising specific products, marketers try to win kids’ loyalty by injecting brands into the very fabric of their emotional lives.

• Marketers have also begun using product placement in kids’ entertainment, weaving products directly into programming without adequate disclosure.

• Finally, in what may be the last frontier of youth marketing, the commercialization of childhood has now penetrated our schools – the very place where one would expect kids to be thinking critically about and independently of commercialism and corporate manipulation.

What kind of psychological, social, or behavioral impact do you think this might have on the targeted child?

5) According to the film, and your own understanding of this phenomenon, what factors have contributed to the increasing commercialization of our schools?

Watch the film and identify any examples of product placement you come across (it may be visual or verbal product placement).

As you think about this marketing practice, do you feel there is something about children, in particular, that might make them especially vulnerable to these kinds of advertising appeals?

2) Explore a virtual world that’s popular with kids: Webkinz, Club Penguin, Neopets, Nicktropolis, or another website where kids gather.

And analyze how you think this kind of marketing might affect a child who visits this site.

• One particularly striking example of how marketers have designed sophisticated ways to study kids’ reactions to products and brands is The Girls Intelligence Agency (GIA) – a marketing firm that recruits girls as “secret agents” to push product or conduct focus groups with their unsuspecting friends.

2) Do you feel that advanced research techniques exploit children’s vulnerabilities, by definition, or do you think a case can be made that marketers are simply trying to find out what kids want in order to better meet their needs and desires?

Should child marketers and corporations have to address the ethical side of marketing to children?

• Companies have moved increasingly away from advertising products based on their actual characteristics to a new kind of symbolic advertising that emphasizes the alleged social meaning of products.

• In the process of trying to push the social meaning of products, marketers have also begun to push a specific set of highly materialistic values about what it means to be “cool.”

• Kids toys, games, and products have become more and more expensive and sophisticated, and values embedded in the marketing messages to children glamorize self-indulgence, instant gratification, and narcissism.

• Kids toys, games, and products have become more and more expensive and sophisticated, and values embedded in the marketing messages to children glamorize self-indulgence, instant gratification, and narcissism.

• Child psychologists have noted that children’s top aspiration today, increasingly, is to be rich, to make a lot of money, and to have a lot of stuff – a vast change from the goals of kids in the past to be a nurse, an astronaut, or a teacher.

Discussion Questions 1) One of the dominant themes of children’s marketing today is the selling of cool, as marketers have shifted from the selling of products to the selling of emotional meanings tied to brands.

How do you think marketers draw on or play into kids’ normal social interactions with their peers in order to make their appeals effective?

Do you see evidence of that in your own life?

4) What types of values are being sold to children in commercial culture?

What role do you think marketing has played in shaping children’s values and aspirations?

5) What are the effects of material values on children, their relationships, and society more generally?

More specifically, do you notice any shift in the ads, as the film suggests, from exaggerating product characteristics to a more symbolic form of advertising?

2) Watch some children’s programming, advertisements, and/or movies, and think about the predominant values that are being conveyed.

2) Watch some children’s programming, advertisements, and/or movies, and think about the predominant values that are being conveyed.

Do the values and messages you detect seem to differ based on gender; in other words, based on whether they’re targeted at young girls or young boys?

• To build brand loyalty as early as possible, youth marketers use a technique known as “age compression,” meaning that they take advantage of a child’s natural developmental urge to be older and more mature than they actually are.

• To build brand loyalty as early as possible, youth marketers use a technique known as “age compression,” meaning that they take advantage of a child’s natural developmental urge to be older and more mature than they actually are.

• A prime example of age compression is the industry invention of so-called “tweens,” kids who are seen as “in between” childhood and adolescence and are now among the most coveted marketing demographics.

• Through the process of “tweening,” children as young as four years old are targeted with teen and adult products and entertainment.

• Age compression has now become so extreme that marketers have begun explicitly targeting babies virtually from birth, so that children as young as six months of age can now recognize brands.

What do you see as some potential risks or threats posed by this strategy to children’s health and well-being?

Would you purchase products with those characters for your own children?

Explore the infant and toddler sections, where you’ll find diapers, bottles, clothes, bedding, etc., and make note of what you see.

If children as young as six months of age can recognize brands, how may early exposure to brands lead to what marketers call “cradle- to-grave” brand loyalty?

Are there environmental concerns attached to children’s consumption?

2) Read chapter four, “Endangered Species: Play and Creativity,” from author Susan Linn’s book Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood.