Kids and teens are a valuable market to advertisers. Helping them become more critical of marketing messages can help protect them from exploitation.
Why do marketers love teens? A number of reasons. They have money to burn, and the items they buy are largely “luxury” items, like clothing, electronics, and music. They make many, if not most, of their purchasing decisions independently. And they have significant influence on family purchases. Perhaps most importantly, companies know that once they have “branded” a child, he or she is likely to be a customer for life, or from “cradle to grave.”
How do they reach kids? Everywhere. Advertising is in magazines, movies, TV shows, and on the internet. Licensed products, in the form of clothing, toys, and accessories, abound. Schools make deals with soda companies and sell naming rights to their gyms to the highest bidder. Companies glean important demographic info about kids spending habits from seemingly innocuous internet “quizzes” and “surveys”. Marketing comes at kids from all directions, twenty-four seven.
How do marketers do it? They know how to capitalize on important teenage issues and anxieties, like body image, peer acceptance, coolness, and a need for power. They use these themes repeatedly in advertising geared towards children and teenagers. Marketers also often hone in on themes and attitudes that parents might find inappropriate or offensive, like sex or alcohol and drug use, further escalating the “coolness factor” of the product.
Why is advertising so effective? Advertising works best when it creates insecurity about something, such as appearance. A successful ad convinces the viewer that they have a problem that needs fixing, and then proposes to offer the solution, which just happens to be the product they are selling. The message is that teens aren’t good enough the way they are. Many kids unwittingly buy into that message, and as a result, end up being hypercritical of themselves because we don’t fit a certain “image” that they believe is necessary for their happiness.
What's wrong with this picture? This generation of kids is growing up in what is perhaps the most materialistic society we have ever had. They are surrounded by images of excess and the idea that buying “things” will bring them satisfaction. They are given things easily and rarely have to delay gratification. Worst of all, many of the things that are advertised to teens do not promote healthy development.
How can you help? Teens need to become more critical viewers of advertising. Help them recognize what’s behind the hard sell. Ask them to identify the themes the advertiser is using to try to connect with them. Ask them to point out what “need” is being projected that the product can supposedly “fill”. Is the product really going to have the impact that the ad implies?
For more on this topic, please check out Tobacco Advertising and Teens as well as New Cigarette Targets Girls.
