In the past, marketing to children was a relatively low-budget affair, mostly concerned with toys and sweets. In the past decade or so, as electronic equipment has swelled, and especially as televisions and computers have moved into children’s bedrooms, it has become a multimillion-pound business. Children are now targeted not only through TV ads, but via internet pop-ups and e-mail as well as through product placements in programmes and on websites. The electronic media allow plenty of opportunities for the two great learning devices: imitation and repetition.

KIDS ARE GROWING OLDER YOUNGER

One popular marketing strategy is KAGOY (Kids Are Growing Older Younger), exploiting children’s natural yearning to be more grown-up. To begin with, this latches on to pretend play: instead of using their imagination and a few dressing-up clothes, today’s children are encouraged to want all sorts of paraphernalia, from fully equipped hairdressing salons to mini-briefcases.

KAGOY has also affected the dolls that little girls covet. As well as Barbie with her accessories, there are now the streetwise, precocious Bratz dolls. The Bratz Secret Date Collection, marketed to six-year-olds, pairs each Bratz girl with a Bratz boy, and includes two champagne glasses and “tons of date-night accessories”.

All this attention to fashion opens the flood-gates for much more spending. There is now a massive fashion industry for children of all ages, with styles that are increasingly adult, including “sexy” underwear for little girls. Little wonder small children now have problems with body image (nearly three quarters of seven-year-olds in a recent survey said they want to be slimmer because they believe they will be more popular).

I always wonder whether the mothers who buy sexy clothing for their preteenage daughters and let them go out plastered in make-up are the same mothers who protest stridently about paedophiles . . . and whether they ever make the rather obvious connection.

GOTTA CATCH ’EM ALL

Another successful ploy is to turn children into rampant consumers by homing in on their natural urge to collect things. Pokémon’s slogan, “Gotta catch ’em all”, sums up the strategy, and there are now endless ranges of collectibles to covet.

What’s more, by emphasising natural differences in the interests of boys and girls, the marketeers exaggerate gender distinctions. Girls are directed towards girly-pink cutesy animals, fashion dolls and grooming products. Boys are lured to the mechanical, quirky, and competitive.

When you link collectibility to fast-changing fashion, you create endless opportunities for consumption. So now every film made for children spawns a vast array of consumer items – and no sooner has one collectible craze reached its peak than another begins.

THE CULTURE OF COOL

This marketing maelstrom affects children in another, very worrying way. The culture of cool it creates now rules the playground, so children’s friendships and relationships are influenced by what they own. The wrong brand of food in your lunch box or a supermarket-label sweatshirt on your back can be social suicide.

Marketeers have also identified that it’s natural for little boys to want to push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. So they sell to boys using the concept of “edgy cool”. This encourages an antiauthority stance that’s at odds with the sort of behaviour parents and teachers try to encourage. But, as with KAGOY, the nature of marketing means constant upping of the ante – and the definition of “edge” is becoming increasingly antisocial.

Playground culture has always existed, and it’s always had a bit of an “edge”. But in the past, it used to be children’s own private world. It was influenced a little by children’s books, comics and the media, but the children themselves maintained control. In many ways, it was an important part of growing up and learning how to leave the family nest. This organised invasion by marketing men is something completely new – and, from my point of view (as a parent and a teacher), very sinister.

KIDS AS CUSTOMERS

There are three key reasons for business to invest heavily in marketing to children:

1. Guilt money

Parents who fear that they’re not spending enough time with their kids often try to make up for their absence with expensive gifts or lots of pocket money. For marketeers it’s a win-win situation. The parents have to work harder and longer to earn money to assuage their guilt. This means children spend more time with their electronic babysitters, so the marketeers can groom them to ask for more “must-haves”.

2. Pester power Since children are now so well versed in “what’s hot and what’s not”, they’re having ever greater influence on a range of family purchases. Harassed parents often give in to pester power to keep the peace on shopping trips.

3. Brand loyalty If marketeers can win children for a brand when very young, they tend to stay loyal for life. So the aim is to get them recognising logos by 2, asking for products by brand name by 2½, and dedicated brand users by 3½. It’s easy to convince children of 8 or under that a certain brand can make them happier and more successful.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU OWN?

Psychologists employed by companies now work on ways to convince children that their lives will be better if they own a certain product.

The point, of course, is to sell products, not to ensure children’s welfare.

MONEY CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

We adults are usually well aware how marketeers constantly target us, and most of us just use ads to help us with consumer choices. But young children aren’t so sophisticated. If they absorb the message that “you are what you own” at an early age, they’re being set up for a lifetime of consumer-driven unhappiness. Studies suggest that once people’s basic material needs are met, real happiness comes not from owning more and more stuff but from: strong, satisfying relationships with others opportunities to be creative the satisfaction of personal achievement a personal belief system that gives meaning to your life

FIGHTING BACK

First of all, take control of the media in your home. Then talk to your child about marketing, consumerism and the difference between life-style and quality of life. Above all, talk about what really makes your child happy.

© Sue Palmer, 2007. Extracted from Detoxing Childhood, to be published by Orion next week (£9.99). It is available from Times BooksFirst at £8.99, free p&p. Call 0870 1608080 or log on to timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy

Selling to kids: how it’s done

1. A company called Dubit recruits children on the web to be “Dubit Informers”. The kids keep the company up to date on street trends and promote the latest “cool” products in return for cash payments. The tag-line reads: “Promote brands on the street for free stuff, prizes and cash”.

2. In late 2006, children visiting Wal-Mart’s Toyland website were shown how to e-mail their parents a list of the items that they wanted for Christmas (an update of the traditional letter to Santa, but of course based on buying from Wal-Mart).

3. To create interest in a new snack product, an advertising agency “seeded” its promo figures (mutant fruit characters) at teeny-bopper concerts. They also featured the characters on websites visited by young teenagers, and on gifts of clothing to TV presenters. The idea was to make the characters popular with teenagers so that younger children (the ad agency’s target group) would see them as “cool” and want to buy the product. It worked.

‘Can I have, can I have . . .’

‘Lots of times you get home and it’s “Can I have, can I have . . .” whatever character it is. You open it up and they don’t like it. They purely wanted it for the picture’

‘I have lost count of the number of tantrums I have had in Asda because I won’t let the girls have a cereal just for the free gift’

‘I feel like I have to keep saying no because obviously with two children, not working, I just haven’t got the money. And they want this and I’m forever going “No, no, no, no” and what the kids must think of me: “Oh I hate Mum because she never buys me anything.” It does get really upsetting’

‘I need to ask if the advertising industry are comfortable spending millions of pounds to target children direct and then saying it’s up to Mum and Dad to stand up to them’

Quoted by kind permission of the Family and Parenting Institute (www.familyand parenting.org), from their publication Hard Sell, Soft Targets, 2004

Detoxing the consumer culture

BE WARM

When children first start watching commercial stations, play “Spot the advertisements” to help them to learn the difference between entertainment and marketing.

Talk to your child about advertising, products and brands. Watch adverts together and discuss how the marketeers target people’s hopes, fears and needs.

Record favourite programmes and teach how to fast-forward during ads.

Do consumer testing with your child and friends. Try “blind tests” of food and drinks (eg, cereals, ketchup, soft drinks), mixing famous brand products and supermarket own-labels. Can they tell the difference and how much does advertising influence their guesses?

Involve children in making consumer decisions that use marketing information wisely, along with other considerations.

Let them help to make shopping lists and discuss food choices.

Discuss other family purchases (cars, holidays), listening respectfully to their contributions, and involving them in reasoned choices.

Limit exposure to consumer culture by doing other things with your children: family outings, activities and hobbies, making things, and so on.

BE FIRM

Monitor what children watch on TV, films and DVD – keep home entertainment in a shared area of the house and watch with them as often as possible.

Keep an eye on ads and marketing, watch out for trends and be aware how marketeers target children.

Limit young children’s viewing to noncommercial stations, such as CBeebies, or selected DVDs.

Demonstrate your distaste for predatory marketing to children – let your children know that marketeers are only interested in their money.

Never give in to pester power. The earlier you make a stand on this, the better – but whatever the age, once you’ve decided, be firm. If you stick with it, your child will eventually realise it’s not on.

Don’t fall into the “guilt money” trap – presence is much more important than presents.

Have clear, fair guidelines on money and spending. Decide what you will/won’t pay for on a regular basis, then agree on levels of pocket money. If children want something extra, teach them to save or wait for birthday/Christmas/other regular present-giving time.

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