Marketing to Children...

Children, what a lovely subject.  An even better subject is marketing to children.  According to media-awareness (2011) children are an important demographic to marketers due to the fact that they have their own purchasing powers.  They can influence their parents buying decisions, known mainly as 'Pester Power' which is the repeated nagging by children to their parents to buy certain products.  As well as them making their own buyer decisions and  also due to the fact that they are the future adult consumers.  There has been extreme increased amounts of advertisements within the past two decades which have been aimed at children.  In America they spent $100 million in 1990 for adverts which steadily increased to around $2 billion in 2000, this shows how the expenditure has changed rapidly.  According to crosswalk.com (2009) children aged between 2-11 see more than 25,000 advertisements a year on TV alone.Therefore the question is: Why Has This Happened?

Well, the answer to this question is simple.  Parents are more willing to buy products for their children due to different trends such as:

1) Latchkey Kids also known as working mums - These parents usually feel guilty as they normally only have a limited amount of time they can spend with their children due to work.  Therefore they substitute material goods for time spent with their children.

2)  Divorce rates and step families - At present, there are increased numbers of step families, which means more grandparents, which live longer, older step siblings and ofcorse the stepparent.  This means that children are being bought more toys, games, clothes etc as there are more people buying for them.

3) Reducing birth rates - Due to the fact that nowadays most families are quite small, and most on average have around 2 children, and have them later in life.  This means that they have higher disposable incomes which they can spend on the children.

Therefore marketers will increase the amount they advertise, as they know the likelihood of someone buying the product for the child has increased dramatically. Also marketers know the more times a child is exposed to an advert the more likely they would want the product and will ask for it.  This increased the chances of it being bought for them as well.  There are many different strategies which marketers adopt to target children and teens:

Pester Power - Children in society today have more decision-making power within their family than in previous generations, therefore it is obvious that children are more vocal about what they want their parents to buy.  This is known as 'Pester Power.'  This is based upon a child's ability to nag their parents into purchasing items, which generally they would not actually have bought.  Marketing to children is generally based around 'Pester Power' as advertisers know how powerful this technique is. Kidfluence (2001) explains that there are two types of nagging; persistence and importance.  Persistence nagging is a repeated plea and is not as effective as importance nagging.  This method is when a parent feels guilty and has a desire to provide the best for their children.

Building Brand Name Loyalty - Marketers will make target brand recognition to very young children, as they hope this will grow into brand loyalty in later life.  Apparently babies as young as six months can form mental images of corporate logos.  Brand loyalties can form at the early age of two and when children start school they can recognise hundreds of brands.  Good examples of these are fast food brands such as; McDonald's, toy and clothing brands.

Commercialization in Education - Budget cuts in schools means that big corporations are offering cash, computers and educational materials in exchange for access to students.  They advertise products through a number of ways; sponsored educational materials, supplying vending machines which hold branded products, sponsors of school events, sponsored prizes such as; vouchers and gift cards, and certain advertisements showing in classrooms in exchange for funding.

The Internet - Marketers will use the Internet to target to the young audience due to the fact that they know it is becoming increasingly popular within society.  The generation today are growing up with the Internet and it is becoming a daily routine of their life.  Parents often do not know the extent of how much children are being targeted online, and are generally unsupervised.  The Internet is also unregulated therefore marketers can regulate whatever they like.  Finally new sophisticated technologies make it easy for companies to gather information on young children so that marketers can then create personalised advertising.

Other aspects that marketers need to consider when targeting children according to allbusiness.com (2011) include the following:

1) The language they use in advertisements - Age appropriate language is important, using current phrases, and children must not be spoken down to, otherwise most will notice and not pay attention.

2) Children should be shown in groups as many like to fit in with the crowd.

3) Show Diversity - Children like adults are not all the same, so marketers should include different types of children in adverts; tall, short, blonde, brunette and different nationalities.

4) Interesting Packaging - Children love colourful things, interesting boxes and shapes.

5) Being responsible and appropriate - Marketers need to make sure that they are not presenting a misleading message that can be shown in a negative way.  Wording and photographs need to be checked again and again.

6) Think Parents - Children normally ask the parents for specific products therefore, marketers need to persuade the parents to buy as well as the child. They need to be price sensitive and demonstrate good value for money.

Here are some examples of adverts which are suitable and aimed for children:

Many people right now are probably thinking, well it can't be that hard to market to children, you can just use bright colours and cartoons.  Well, yes, advertisers can do this, but it is also important to remember that there are so many other aspects that marketers have to consider when targeting such a young set of consumers.  There is a list of requirements which advertisers have to follow when creating marketing campaigns aimed for children.  Some of these are:

• Adverts must not take advantage of a children inexperience or their natural credulity and sense of loyalty, this helps to avoid arousing unrealistic expectations.
• Adverts for expensive toys must show an indication of their price and the cost must not be minimised by the use of such words as "only" or "just".
• Adverts must avoid anything likely to encourage poor nutritional habits and an unhealthy lifestyle in children.
• Food adverts must not directly ask children to buy or ask their parents or any other advert to make a purchase.
• Any promotional offers should be used with responsibility and must not target nursery or primary school children.
• Adverts must not imply a children will be inferior to others or encourage/condone bullying in any form.

So Ha... Its Been Proven... Nagging Mum Does Work!