Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Final
Final
Children as
marketing tools
Submitted by Doaa Osama
20180939
2022
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
Abstract:
On TV, we have all kinds of advertisements. We see products that target all kinds of audiences
with all the differences in their ages or their interests or whatever they do on a day-to-day basis.
Children can sometimes be as efficient a marketing tool as any other tool used to grab the eye of
the customer. Guilt can also play a role in spending decisions as time-stressed parents substitute
material goods for time spent with their kids. So, we will view how efficient children can be as
tools to attract parents or customers in general so that the advertising companies can benefit from
that.
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
Table of Contents
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………….1
Reference List…………….………………………………………………………..11
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
Research question:
Marketing Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools in your arsenal.
These days, some 90% of young adults use social media to communicate with brands, and if
anything, that’s only likely to increase.
Soon, social media will become the most important marketing strategy for all target markets, and
whether you’re just about to start your first social media campaign or you’ve been at it for years,
there’s always more you can learn to improve your strategy.
It is aimed that this study will help focus on how important children are as targets to
marketers.
The children and a little from adults report illustrated the children influence on everyday family
activities such as: Breakfast choices (97% of the time) and lunch choices (95% of the time),
Where to go for casual family meals (98% of the time) (with 34% of children always having a
purchases (76% of the time) and computer purchases (60% of the time), Family entertainment
choices (98% of the time) and family trips and excursions (94% of the time).
As a result, over the last two decades, industry spending on children's advertisements has
exploded. In 2009, businesses in the United States alone invested over $17 billion on this, more
than twice the amount spent in 1992. Because of trends such as smaller family sizes, parents
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
today are able to purchase more for their children. Since today's children have greater autonomy
and decision-making power within the family than previous generations, they are more
outspoken about what they want their parents to purchase. Pester power refers to a child's ability
to persuade their parents to purchase things they wouldn't normally buy. Since marketers
understand the power of pester power, marketing to children is all about generating it.
Advertisers must understand what makes children tick in trying to respond to them effectively.
Advertisers now have access to in-depth information about children's developmental, cognitive,
and social needs at various ages thanks to well-paid researchers and psychologists. Children's
behavior, fantasy lives, artwork, and even dreams are studied using science. To meet young
people, businesses can devise sophisticated marketing strategies. In the late 1990s, for example,
the advertising company Saatchi and Saatchi employed cultural anthropologists to study
children's use of new technologies at home in order to better understand how to connect them
with brands and goods. When a group of American mental health practitioners wrote a public
letter to the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1999, asking them to declare the
practice unethical, the issue of using child psychologists to help advertisers target kids gained
Although the American Psychological Association did not outright prohibit psychologists from
participating in this activity, their final report in 2004 recommended that the APA “make efforts
to assist psychologists in weighing the possible ethical problems involved in professional efforts
to more efficiently advertise to children, particularly those children who are too young to
comprehend the persuasive intent of television commercials. Marketers sow the seeds of brand
awareness in the minds of small children in the hopes that the seeds will develop into long-term
relationships. Babies as young as six months old can form mental images of corporate logos and
mascots, according to the Center for a New American Dream. Brand loyalties can be established
as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize hundreds of
brand logos, The Internet is an extremely desirable medium for marketers wanting to
target children: it’s part of youth culture. This generation of young people is growing up with the
Internet as a daily and routine part of their lives. Parents generally do not understand the extent
to which kids are being marketed to online, Kids are often online alone, without
parental supervision, Unlike broadcasting media, which have codes regarding advertising to kids,
the Internet is unregulated, Sophisticated technologies make it easy to collect information from
young people for marketing research, and to target individual children with
Relationship building through ads that attempt to connect with consumers by building personal
relationships between them and the brand, Viral ads that are designed to be passed along
to friends, Behavioral targeting, where ads are sent to individuals based on personal information
that has been posted or collected, Endorsements by online “influencers” who are paid to
I honestly believe that kids aren’t as efficient in terms of being marketing tools because with the
images that seduce us and intoxicate us through the most varied forms of media. It is known that
until about 12 years of age they have not developed critical thinking and therefore, are more
susceptible to the appeal of commercials. Even though, in accordance with legislation, children
cannot perform acts of civil life such as buying a vehicle or signing a contract, they are
approached directly by advertising as full consumers. All in all, children shouldn’t be viewed as
a reliable marketing tool as there are many other options to be used in advertisements and
commercials.
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
The data gathered for this study was a questionnaire investigating are kids an efficient enough
marketing tool? It was carried among students from the faculties of mass communication and
A total number of five males and five females which are students in the University of CIC who
have studied and have enrolled into courses and classes which were related to marketing.
Sample Questionnaire:
3. Does targeting the enfant audience help benefit the company’s sales?
-Yes / No
4. Does the use of children in commercial have a long-term effect on the customers?
-Yes / No
5. Do commercials with kids leave a good impression with you or your friends?
-Yes / No
10. Is Covid-19 a factor in affecting children and exposing them to the possibility of
getting infected?
-Yes / No
Data Grid:
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
Ques Res Res Res Res Res Res Res Res Res Res
tions p.1 p.2 p.3 p.4 p.5 p.6 p.7 p.8 p.9 p.1
0
7 3 6 9 8 9 10 5 9 9 9
9 Par Par Parent Pare Childr Chil Parent Parent Pare Par
ent ent s nts en dren s s nts ent
s s s
Data Interpretation:
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
In this Questionnaire, We concluded that in Question (1) 70% of the people said YES:
commercials are more appealing with children in them, in Question (2) 50% said (3) not so
much: companies having to think twice about putting children in their commercials, in Question
(3) 50% said YES: targeting the enfant audience does benefit the company’s sales, in Question
(4) 90% said (1) YES: the use of children does have a long-term effect on the viewers and
customers, in Question (5) 50% said NO: commercials leave a good impression with the people
who answered and their friends , in Question (6) 450% said HAPPY : the impressions that they
took from kids-related commercials , in Question (7) 60% said (1) bad: on commercials
nowadays, in Question (8) 60% said (1) YES: Children should be included in commercials, in
Question (9) 70% said PARENTS are the most affected, and finally in Question (10) 70% said
Conclusion
We conclude in this Research that kids aren’t as efficient in terms of being marketing tools. It is
also known that until about 12 years of age they have not developed critical thinking and
therefore, are more susceptible to the appeal of commercials. These are some of the points that
prove that kids won’t be able to become a reliable marketing tool for marketers to use whenever
they can as there are many more alternatives that make the marketing process more fluid and
more purposeful.
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KIDS AS MARKETING TOOLS
Reference List:
https://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/media-issues/marketing-consumerism/
how-marketers-target-kids