Hanah Montana Syndrome

Business Week defines a becoming a tween as "when he/she rejects more childlike images and associations and aspires to be more like a teen". BW believes that the main purchasing power of tweens is the dependant of the finance of the parents and other family adults through allowance and gifts, and not dependant on their own financial resources such as after school work. It also states that tweens are the main decision driver in many of the family decisions. A whole new way of marketing to tweens has evolved through the combination of play with purchase, such as the Build-A-Bear workshops and online stores such as fashionology.com, as can be seen in this video. Most of the tween marketing, currently, is focused on girls, but, BW says, marketers focus is turning to the boys.

As could be expected the mobile phone industry is also turning it's attention to tweens, with giants such as Disney and Nickelodeon making the mobile phone and accessory market as full and varied for tweens as it is for adults. Not only this but a range of new networks are poping up in the US to offer starter packs focused on helping tweens stay in contact with their parents, often with features such as GPS to help parent "track" the child.

Marketing Junk Food to Kids states that there are three main reasons companies want to market to children. Firstly, brand loyalty. It is as Hitler said, above. If a child drinks Coca-Cola at five, she will probably drink Coca-Cola over other brands for the rest of her life. The second reason is pester power, that I have explained in the previous blog. The third reason, and here is is talking only of the junk food market, is that the marketers want children to think that they can only eat "kid's food". Things that come in funny shapes and colours, with cartoon characters on the box.

This last point can, however, be transferred into other markets, that children think they should have their own products, that differ significantly, if only in looks, from those their parents use. For example, Disney have bought out a series of Disney Princess TVs, DVD players, CD players etc.

You can get children's bed that look like race cars, IKEA has a whole section of it's merchandise solely aimed at children, so there's no way that parents will get away with buying them a boring old adults desk/chair/bed/wardrobe. And these aren't just things that are smaller, in a child's size, they have a completely different look, style. Children are alot more fickle with what they like, and will therefor quickly grow out of the child-friendly products, wanting the next latest fashion.

One advert that is aimed at adults, but is extremely child-friendly, is the BUPA Health Insurance adverts. It uses bold colours and simple shapes that would appeal to a child, and make it stand out in his/her mind. This is a tactic being more frequently usd by marketers as the Insurance company is more likely stick in the mind of a generation of children, and when they come to want medical insurance they will be more favourable to Bupa, and they probably won't even know why. Bupa will have become part of thier evoked set from such an early age that these children won't even know it's there. It also employs a sing-song tone of voice and a story-like script with a happily-ever-after ending.

Although ASA has just extended it's code of conduct to include online marketing there is one problem. According to The Guardian this code only includes "paid for banner and pop-up ads and sales promotions" yet this leaves the rest of the website to be used as one big advert. Just one of the many websites the article site is the Cheestring website. It is an easy to use, "play" style website, with games and quizzes. One of the quizzes asks: "To keep teeth healthy, what is the best food to eat at the end of the meal? An apple or a Cheestring?" (The answer is Cheestring.) And apparently these websites really do work. The article states that;

"A recent study carried out by Intuitive Media for New Media Age magazine interviewed more than 2,800 primary school children and found that 43% of them said they would buy or eat more of a food brand because they have seen it online or played a game about it. What is more, over 20% of them go online to find out about their favourite foods and snacks."

So with branding and advertising seeping into the heart of child's play on the Internet, know as embedded brand opportunities, many adverts are going unnoticed. Agnes Niarn, on The Dangers of Internet Marketing, is concerned that the laws that apply in "the real world" aren't being enforced online. This includes things like product placement and advertising alcohol, advertising tobacco and advertising to children. This is all compounded with the problem that arises with every topic concerning children and the Internet; it is much harder for parents to monitor what their children see on the Internet.

An article entitled "Should We Ban Marketing to Children?" takes a brief look at just how detrimental to children such omnipresent marketing can be, suggesting that such a high level of advertising creates a materialistic cycle that is getting out of control. Children are growing up as walking, talking, living advertisements that believe that the brand is the value. As they become more materialistically focused they become desensitised to the things that really matter in life, and come to believe that the only way to happiness is having the right "things". This creates an even bigger "need" to buy these things, and that this high level of exposure to the consumer culture at an early age is associated with increased chances of becoming obese, anorexic, bulimic, acting in violent or aggressive ways, using alcohol or tobacco and being sexually promiscuous.