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Ann Marie Willis

Assignment 4- Revision
Hagerty- ENGL 1127
November 8, 2016
Marketing to Children
Hi, my name is Ann Marie Willis and I am on the board of marketing for Target
Corporation. Over the recent months, I have done a lot of research on what things could help our
company increase our profits in relation to our advertisements and am here to share some of my
findings with you all today. The most important strategy that I came across through my research
was the idea of focusing in on your target audience and who that may be relative to the product
or service you are trying to sell. While most companies assume that the audience they need to
focus their advertisements includes only the people they are directly trying to sell to, a very
important demographic that should be included in the audience of many marketing campaigns is
that of young children. Children are a crucial aspect to marketing because studies show that
children have a very large impact on their parents purchases and actions. In addition, children
are generally more susceptible to advertising, specifically digital advertising, than adults are, so
they are more inclined to remember the product and eventually convince their parents to buy it.
While targeting children may seem like an obvious business approach, some people believe that
it is entirely unethical. Some argue that because children are unable to control what is shown to
them, and that their minds are so easily manipulated, it is unfair to take advantage of them and in
some ways brainwash them. Some parties also argue that marketing to children has led to various
health problems, primarily obesity, because children are easily persuaded to strongly desire the
fattening food shown in advertisements. Once the children have their hearts set on eating this
food, their parents eventually give in and buy it for them. However, with children influencing
billions of dollars of purchases, it is hard to say whether this strategy should be banned entirely

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or even receive significant changes. With this controversy taken into consideration, I still believe
that businesses can benefit from this strategy without crossing any ethical lines while still
keeping a respectable reputation. Throughout my speech today, I am going to walk through each
of the benefits of marketing towards children along with the ethical and health controversies that
this particular strategy introduces, and why these benefits outweigh any cons.
To begin, I think that it is important that everyone understands the psychology behind this
marketing strategy, and why this kid-buying power is increasing, to fully understand why
marketing to children is effective. From a very early age, practically birth, children are
bombarded with brand messages from television, labels, billboards, and more. According to
Robin Marwick, a medical writer for AboutKidsHealth, up to age four or five, most children do
not understand that there is a difference between entertainment and advertising so they watch
commercials and television programs with equal attention (Marwick 1). Because of this, they
are processing the information given to them by commercials with excitement and genuine
interest. This is a major contrast to the minds of older children and adults who are irritated by
commercials, and who subconsciously pay less attention to them than the actual program they
are watching.
Another aspect that makes young children better targets for advertising than adults is the
fact that children do not develop a concept of other people's beliefs, desires, and motives,
known as "theory of mind," until they are at least six years old, according to Mary Story and
Simone French, authors of an article for the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and
Physical Activity (Story, French 5). In other words, children younger than six or maybe older are
unable to understand that advertisements are trying to persuade them to buy things, so they lack
any reasoning behind why they shouldnt want the item being advertised. As for slightly older

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children (maybe eight to twelve years old), they are more inclined to understand that the purpose
of ads is to persuade them, but are still vulnerable to the aspirational marketing campaigns, as
Story and French call them. During this age period, children are likely to try to develop their own
sense of identity, thus, they are drawn to things that are going to make them who they aspire to
be and form their individuality. For tweens, these might include ads that use their product to
portray the actor or actress in the commercial as more popular than his or her peers who lack the
specific product (Story, French 5). This makes the child consumer feel like he or she needs to
buy the product in order to be more popular. You may compare this strategy to the cigarette ad
displayed on the slide behind me, where Lucky Strike is portraying to their consumers that
smoking their cigarettes will make you skinnier. For tweens, this may be more similar to this
next slide, in which the skincare brand, ProActive, uses Justin Bieber, an idol to most teens, to
show that their product will make your skin look as good as Justin Biebers. This type of
marketing strategy also applies to teenagers, imply Story and French, because many of them are
trying to differentiate themselves from their parents and fit in with their peer group (Story,
French 5). Aspirational advertisements may aim to target teens' insecurities, or take positive
qualities such as their desire to challenge conformity and portray themselves as counter-culture
brands.
With a better understanding of why marketing to children is effective, we can now
recognize the connection between children viewing an advertisement and eventually becoming
the consumer of the products advertised. According to the statistics from the 2008 YTV Kids and
Tween Report, children influence their familys meal choice, clothing purchases, software
purchases, and entertainment choices about 97% of the time, on average (Marwick 1). In a more
recent poll from 2012, 60% of tweens were reported to have the final decision on what car their

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parents buy, states author Martin Lindstrom in his article titled, The Next Generation of
Consumers (Lindstrom 1). Sandra L. Calvert, a psychology professor at Georgetown
University and director of the Childrens Digital Media Center, argues that parents today are
more willing to purchase things for their kids than they were previously. This idea is supported
by the trends of smaller family size, dual incomes, and postponing having children until later in
life (Calvert 205). Because of these recent trends, families might have more disposable income,
or they substitute time spent with their children with material goods to satisfy their guilt. This
influence that children have is what advertising executive, Barbara A. Martino, refers to as
pester power (Marwick 2). This term refers to the childs ability to bother the parent enough
and ultimately leading the parent to buy the product advertised which he or she would otherwise
not buy. Furthermore, evidence found in Kidfluence, a marketing industry book by Terry Poulton,
proves that parents are more likely to give into pestering when the plea values importance rather
than persistence (MediaSmarts 2). This method of exhibiting importance convinces parents that
the product provides a better well-being for their child and could potentially [play] on any guilt
they may have about not having enough time for their kids (MediaSmarts 2), states the author of
How Marketers Target Kids.
The vulnerability that children have to marketing is a leading factor in the controversy
over the ethical and health concerns surrounding marketing to children. Many activists consider
food advertising to be a leading cause of the increase in overweight children. For several
decades, food companies and restaurants have taken advantage of the vulnerability of childrens
minds by targeting them with food advertisements. While this is understandable and to be
expected, Marwick states that the food advertised to children is generally less than nutritious:
most of it is highly processed, rich in saturated fat, salt, and sugar, and poor in nutrients like

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fiber, vitamins, calcium, and iron (Marwick 2). Because of this, children are led to believe that
unhealthy foods are what they should desire, so that is what they consume. I think that most of us
would agree that this type of marketing could be detrimental to our societys health, and that this
activity should not be supported. However, if you consider how effective marketing nonnutritious foods is, we can conclude that marketing nutritious foods can have the same effect. A
study in the September 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found that: An
average of 10.6 food commercials were shown per hour, meaning that a child who watches two
hours of television per day would see nearly 8,000 food commercials per year, eighty-three per
cent of the advertisements were for convenience foods, fast foods, candy, and soft drinks,
compared to only 2% for fruits and vegetables, commercials showed snack-time eating more
often than breakfast, lunch, and dinner combined, a 2000-calorie diet made up of the foods in ads
aimed at children would give more than the recommended daily value of sodium and would
contain 171 g (nearly 1 cup) of added sugar, and finally, that most characters in the
advertisements were of average weight, no matter what or how much they ate (Marwick). These
statistics show obvious errors in our current marketing approach, but also show how much
opportunity there is for us to reverse these facts. If children watch nearly 8,000 food
commercials per year, and 20,000 total commercials per year (according to Marwick), we have
8,000 opportunities to encourage healthy eating in kids and lower the obesity rates, and even
more opportunities to sell non-food related products (Marwick) 2. For companies like my
association, Target, we can easily transfer our marketing of unhealthy foods to marketing of the
healthy foods we carry, and also market active wear and other exercise-related products to use
target-marketing in a positive way. This transfer of technique will lead our consumers to trust us
more and therefore consume our products over any other companys.

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Another controversy related to the ethical boundaries that some parties believe marketing
to children crosses is the age appropriateness of some advertisements. The main concern of most
people on this side of the controversy is that companies are using their marketing tools solely to
benefit their profits, rather than taking the advertisements effect on its viewers into
consideration. Once again, I can agree that that approach to marketing is unfair and selfish. For
example, I can absolutely agree that placing an advertisement for condoms or the like on a
childrens program channel could only have negative effects on the children viewing it. Not only
may this type of advertisement expose young children to things they do not yet need know about,
but they could lead children to actually doing scandalous things just because the advertisement
made it look like the cool thing to do. Because of examples such as this, I believe that there
should be legal restrictions on this form of advertising, and that we as marketers should restrict
ourselves in this area. According to the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, children
under the age of fourteen spend more than $40 billion annually, and while they may not
technically be doing the buying, those under twelve influence more than $500 billion in
purchases (Minsker 1). This fact makes it extremely difficult to fathom the amount of impact
ending strategic marketing to children would do to our economy as a whole. However, it is
possible for us to work around these ethical concerns just as it is for us to compensate the health
controversies. Cynthia Baron, academic director of the digital media program at Northeastern
University, says, Context and content make a difference and many brands have responded
positively to the need for more responsible advertising (Minsker 1). Baron reports that in
January 2014, after complaints from many parental consumers, eighteen companies, including
Campbell's Soup, Dannon, General Mills, Kellogg's, Pepsi, and Kraft, adopted strict categoryspecific nutrition criteria for their food that's advertised to children, making it easier for parents

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to compare products across brands (Minsker 1). This is a strategy that every food marketer can
adopt, and a lesson that any product marketer can benefit from as well. Not only do these types
of changes help the health and peace of mind of our consumer society, but they allow us to gain
trust and ultimately brand loyalty from our consumers. If our consumers can trust that we are
not using their childrens innocence solely for our own benefit, they are more likely to respect
our name more and are more likely to purchase our products time and time again.
Now that we have addressed the facts about marketing to kids as well as how to do so in
a fair, ethical way that could actually benefit us more, we must discuss how we can follow
through with this strategy in the most effective way for our businesses. According to my
research, the obvious way to follow through this strategy is digital marketing. At an increasing
rate, the world is quickly shifting from paper to digital, and people are consuming more and
more digital content on a daily basis. Because of this, consumers have increased access to
advertisements, since digital methods of communication and marketing are faster, more
versatile, practical and streamlined (Calvert 205), says Calvert in her article, Children as
Consumers. Not only does digital marketing give consumers more access to seeing and
purchasing brands but also gives companies almost unlimited time and space to show their
product. Now, you might ask, how does this help target children? With major technological
advances in the past several years, I am sure you have noticed children have ditched activities
such as playing outside, board games, and action figures and are now addicted to their iPad
games and updating their social media accounts. A 2010 Kaiser Foundation study showed that
elementary aged children use on average seven and a half hours per day of entertainment
technology, 75 percent of these children have TVs in their bedrooms, and 50 percent of North
American homes have the TV on all day (Rowan 1). While to parents these facts are worrisome,

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to marketers such as ourselves, this is an amazing phenomenon. Not only is digital marketing
extraordinarily cheaper than other forms of marketing, but it gives us nearly twenty- four hours a
day, seven days a week opportunity to reach child consumers. Younger children primarily spend
their so called screen time playing games on thousands of different apps, so these apps are
where we can most effectively reach this age group. Going back to the fact that childrens minds
are unable to decipher between entertainment and advertisement like that of an adult, embedding
vibrant, attention-grabbing pop-up ads and banners into these apps can recruit millions more
consumers in just a few seconds, and costs just a few dollars.
Another aspect of child-targeted marketing that is important for every company to
recognize through their use of digital marketing is brand imprinting. This strategy is supported
by research by the Center for the New American Dream shows that babies as young as six
months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots (Moore n.pag.). When
these children grow up recognizing certain logos, they are more willing to buy a brand that they
recognize rather than another brand selling the same product, a topic I mentioned earlier called
brand loyalties. This evidence implies that companies should prioritize reaching young children
because those children are our potential buyers. As for a digital marketing perspective, we can
use this evidence to strategically place our product advertisements in places where even young
babies, who are unable to even communicate their desires, are likely to see them.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate the most important take-aways from my research. In
marketing, we are always trying to think of new, creative approaches that maybe our competitors
havent thought of yet. My way of doing this, however, is taking the old approaches that every
marketer has used up, and refining them in ways that will better suit our wallets and consumer

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society simultaneously. By using this pretty well-known strategy of target marketing and dodging
nearly all of the ethical diversities surrounding it, as well as applying the strategy to new
progressions in technology and culture, our businesses have the potential to increase our gross
profits more than we ever have. After hearing about my personal conclusions from my recent
research, I hope that each of you will take the proposed strategy of child-targeted marketing, and
use it in a way that shows this particular approach, as well as marketing as whole, in a positive
light. By doing this, we can prove to all of our consumers, specifically parents, that our
companies do not intend to harm their children in any way. Ultimately, this will help each of our
companies to regain the respect from our buyers, which will, in turn, result in brand loyalty.

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Works Cited
Calvert, Sandra L. "Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing." The Future of Children
18.1 (2008): 205-34. Princeton.edu. Web. 1 Nov. 2016.
"How Marketers Target Kids." MediaSmarts. N.p., 2010. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Lindstrom, Martin. n. pag. The Next Generation of Consumers. Democratic Media. Digitas
Perspective, Oct. 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.
Marwick, Robin. "Target Market: Children as Consumers." AboutKidsHealth. AboutKidsHealth,
n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.
Minsker, Maria. "Is Kid-Targeted Marketing Unethical?" CRM Magazine. N.p., 01 Aug. 2014.
Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Moore, Chris. "Ethics in Advertising." Ethics in Advertising. Advertising Ethics Foundation, n.d.
Web. 03 Nov. 2016.
Rowan, Cris. "The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 July 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Story, Mary, and Simone French. "Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and
Adolescents in the US." International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical
Activity. BioMed Central, n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.

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