CHILDREN AND MARKETING. Recognizing Messages and What to Do About It.

Transcription

1 CHILDREN AND MARKETING Recognizing Messages and What to Do About It.

2 DEFINITION Marketing is getting you to buy something... now or later. Advertising, product tie-ins, product placement, news reports, and character visits are all ways to get a marketing message out.

3 ADWEEK MARCH 2015 Kids spend most of their media time watching TV. 2 to 8 year olds watch an average of 1 hour per day. Over 8 year olds watch an average of 2.5 hours per day. Kids aged 2 to 11 see an average of 25,600 ads per year. 40% of these ads are from non-children programming.

4 ADWEEK MARCH to 11 year olds spend an additional 1.5 hours of computer time daily. 87% of the most popular children s website carry some type of advertising. Fast food, candy and cereal accounted for about half of all food ads seen by kids in % of these companies had child-targeted content on their websites.

5 2005 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH A child watching 2 hours of children programming per day sees about 21 food commercials. Food advertising makes up about half of all advertising to children. Commercials showed snack-time eating more than breakfast, lunch and dinner combined. Characters and people presented in advertising were of average weight regardless of eating habit references.

6 WHERE ARE THE MESSAGES?

7 PRODUCT TIE-INS MAKE IT COMMON AND FAMILIAR

8 PRODUCT PLACEMENT SHOWS SUPPORT PRODUCT MESSAGES

9 ACKWARD AVOIDANCE AVOIDING A PLACEMENT CAN STILL SUPPORT PLACEMENT

10 MUSIC VIDEO HAVE YOU SEEN THE LYRICS?

11 PBS

12 BIG BUCKS Pre-Frozen Disney earned $39 billion in retail sales of licensed goods (2012). Same year Nickelodeon products earned $5.5 billion. Same year Cartoon Network products earned $2.8 billion.

13 NOT JUST A TOY ALSO A VIDEO GAMEPIECE

14 EVEN HAPPY MEALS SCAN YOUR TOY TO PLAY GAMES

15 HELLO BARBIE VERBALLY INTERACTIVE VIA WI-FI CONNECTION

16 MONITORING & HACKING DATA COLLECTION GOES BEYOND USAGE

17 ENTERTAINMENT BROADER CATEGORY

18 ENTERTAINMENT CATEGORY Toys Television Video Games Movies Supplemental Merchandise Consumer Data

19 EDUTAINMENT MAKING LEARNING FUN

20 WHAT ARE THE MESSAGES?

21 BUY PRODUCTS The Nag Factor Buy it for me. The Educational approach Your child will get something out of it. The Social approach Your child will get friends.

22 BUY PRODUCTS Fun and Novel approach It will amuse the parent as much as the child. Hours of Fun approach It will occupy the child and free up your time.

23 LONG-TERM STRATEGY Getting children to associate brand or product to joyful times in childhood now means an easier sell to them parents later as they fondly think back to their childhood.

24 WHO ARE THE TARGETS?

25 THE MARKET: AGES 2 TO 11 Age 4 to 5 No real differentiation between commercial and program. Advertising claims taken literally Theory of Mind - the understanding that other people may think differently than you comes around age 8 to 9. Age 2 to 11 Ads focus on happiness and fun -- branding joy (2-year olds know). Type of ad content matches type of programming content.

26 THE MARKET: AGES 6 TO 11 Social identity being developed. Ads and products take on aspirational messages of high status. Products begin to identify common social groupings Gender identification key Groups within gender (princess, jock, bookworm, counter-culturist) FOMO and I Am Special messages Fear of Missing Out

27 DISNEY DEFINES

28 THE MARKET: THE PARENT Parents control scheduling Parents control money Marketer messages surround programming that is educational of social to get through parent gates.

29 WHAT CAN YOU DO?

30 WHAT TO DO Start now. Be aware and informed. Assess what is in your home. Limit screen time. This includes television and computers. Talk about advertising messages What did you learn from that commercial? -- Is that true? What do you think about that product?

31 WHAT TO DO Model shopping habits. Explain why you are buying a brand name or not buying a brand name. Explain how you budget money. Give them experiences. Set up jobs so they can earn money. Set up advertising experiences (lemonade stand, help distribute flyers). Practice saving for an item. Discuss the results -- was it worth it?

32 WHAT TO DO Model healthy habits. Talk about healthy eating and snacking. Have non-tech time each day. Go on family walks or other outings. Have a family game night (may include technology). Bring it back to the family. Talk about things that are important in your family. Does this message or behavior match your family culture?

33 WHAT TO DO Share responsibility. Get children involved in scheduling eating and preparing food. Include chores that require taking care of things. Limit resources.

34 IMPACT ON CHILDREN

35 MARKETING AND OBESITY There is a causal link between screen time and childhood obesity. limiting screen time may or may not help. There are other factors. Homework time. Quality of inexpensive food. Environmental safety. Unvalued social and emotional skill building in academic rigor.

36 MARKETING AND SMOKING, ALCOHOL & SEX Children as young as 6 years recognize brands. Marketing messages remove taboos. Favorable response to a brand is not causal for eventual behavior. Media reports linking favored celebrities to risky behaviors increases favorable response to the behavior, even if the link is negative.

37 SUBTLE REPRESENTATION

38 OFTEN BY VILLANS

39 ARE STILL ROLE-PLAYED

40 MARKETING AND AGGRESSION Violence in any media increases aggressive behavior, thinking, and tollerance for aggression. Aggression is both physical and verbal review showed 30% of E rated video games had violent descriptors. 90% of E10+ had violent descriptors.

41 MEDIA AND AGGRESSION Culture and training can mediate and redirect learned aggression. Reframing self-identified social groups and status can change values developed around aggressive behavior.

42 QUESTIONS?

43 THANK YOU