Overviw

Marketing contributes to many problems facing children today • Marketing directly to children is a factor in the childhood obesity epidemic. 1 • Marketing also encourages eating disorders, precocious sexuality, youth violence and family stress and contributes to children’s diminished capability to play creatively. 2, 3 • As young children are developing their gender identities, they are flooded with ads for products promoting sexualized stereotypes. There are 40,000 Disney Princess items on the market today. 4 Violent movies, like Spiderman and Transformers, market toys that promote violence to boys. 5 Marketing to children is a huge business • Companies spend about $17 billion annually marketing to children, 6 a staggering increase from the $100 million spent in 1983. 7 • Children under 14 spend about $40 billion annually. 8 Compare this to the $6.1 billion 4-12 year olds spent in 1989. 9 Teens spend about $159 billion. 10 • Children under 12 influence $500 billion in purchases per year. 11 • This generation of children is the most brand conscious ever. 12 Teens between 13 and 17 have 145 conversations about brands per week, about twice as many as adults. 13 Children are bombarded with marketing every waking moment • Children ages 2-11 see more than 25,000 advertisements a year on TV alone, 14 a figure that does not include product placement. They are also targeted with advertising on the Internet, cell phones, mp3 players, video games, school buses, and in school. • Almost every major media program for children has a line of licensed merchandise including food, toys, clothing, and accessories. Brand licensed toys accounted for $22.3 billion in 2006. 15 • In their effort to establish cradle-to-grave brand loyalty and promote nagging, marketers even target babies through licensed toys and accessories featuring media characters. 16 • Viral marketing techniques take advantage of children’s friendships by encouraging them to promote products to their peers. 17