advertising question - need opinions

[soph_10]

Hi everyone,
I'm a new member but not a new visitor to this site. I'm a university student currently undergoing my honours year which requires the completion of a thesis. Always having a love of advertising I've decided on the topic "Advertising in a kids world: what is appropriate?" Basically it will look and discuss the internal (ethics etc) and external (laws, statutes) factors that shape advertising directed at children as well as the childs cognitive development which plays a part in the direction the design takes.
What I need to know is :
- Is there any body out there reading this who know of any agency's (preferably in australia) who have created campaigns to target children (particularly the tween market aged approx 8 to 12)
Also any opinions about the topic, what you personally think, know etc I would love to hear from you
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, and hopefully someone can help me out there
Sophie

[m00nwater]

The biggest company that comes to mind is McDonalds...they are very often marketed towards kids. Hell, their mascot is a clown!

[Ovaltine]

Don't forget the children's cereal market.

[budafist]

I do design work for a Kids Expo. It's an annual expo and a 3 day weekend where parents pay to take their kids to a huge event and they are basically marketed to with freebies, entertainment etc.

The owners of this expo sold the business last year because they found that a lot of companies that used to hold stalls at the expo were pulling out. They did not want to participate anymore.

The reason was because a lot of them had been in the media and criticised for targeting children in their advertising. So they wanted to cut out all marketing to children out for a while. Companies such as fast food chains, softdrinks and sugary foods were among those that pulled out of the expo.

[urstwile]

All the well thought out advertising campaigns are targeted at a demographic, I doubt that children have been excluded from those focus groups and the research involved. Just watch some Saturday morning cartoons in the U.S., I doubt the advertising there happened at random.

I suspect you'll do better to focus your question on "who" rather than "did they" in terms of finding answers for your thesis.

Not knowing the Australian market, I can only feel strong in stating that any candy companies, fast food marketers, toy manufacturers and clothing manufacturers have probably targeted a certain large part of their advertising towards the "under 16" market. Nickelodeon's entire brand is focused on that demographic. Shouldn't be too hard to research, and/or see the obvious that's right there in front of you.

[frankster]

This is US based info, but in all fairness, the US seems to be driving the trend in marketing to this age bracket.

The Great Tween Buying Machine: Marketing to Today's Tweens (http://www.amazon.com/Great-Tween-Buying-Machine-Marketing/dp/0967143969/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207202520&sr=1-1), advertising professionals David Siegel, Timothy Coffey, and Gregory Livingston have recognized this market is a $100 million dollar industry. Their own company, Wondergroup, in Cincinnati, Ohio is an agency specifically serving the youth market. Tweens, according to these advertisers, characteristically have a split personality toggling between kid behaviors and teenage attitudes
The average tween today has three key characteristics according to Siegel, Coffey, and Livingston: instant gratification, success as a given, and liberal social values.

and from the other direction...

Kay Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute writes about the recent "tweening of America" as a phenomenon that will continue in a downward age trend in her book, Ready or Not, (http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Not-Happens-Children-Adults/dp/1893554201) she talks about the anticulturalization of the child through the media's successful deconstruction of childhood. Without denying the existence of childhood openly, advertisers have subtly imposed the idea that children are "capable, rational, and autonomous beings endowed with all the qualities necessary for their adulthood....needing little shaping by adults.

Psychologist David Elkind also refers to this new child development situation in his book, All Grown Up and No Place to Go: Teenagers in Crisis (http://www.amazon.com/All-Grown-Up-Place-Teenagers/dp/0201483858/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207203076&sr=1-1), as "vanishing markers", or the erosion of the growth markers that signal the passing from adolescent immaturity to adolescent sophistication.

In 2004, a public interest group asked the Federal Trade Commission (FCC) to "use its subpoena power to get access to marketer research studies to help determine if online data collection actually succeeds in helping advertisers to reach kids and tweens." It also asked for a moratorium to be placed by the advertising industry on interactive tactics that "could potentially harm or negatively affect children and youth."

On the subject of food marketing to kids and tweens, you can read this book (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11514)free online. There is a part of it that states all the different laws surrounding advertising on tv to kids in various places in the world. (http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11514&page=469)

You have chosen a very interesting subject! Good luck with it.

[CkretAjint]

http://www.davidairey.com/advertising-to-children-right-or-wrong/