In the essay “Kid Kustomers” by Eric Schlosser, Schlosser discusses children advertising and its effectiveness. About twenty-five years ago, hardly any American company marketed towards children unlike today where the majority is directed towards children. According to an expert this era was known as “the decade of the child consumer.” Ad agencies implemented children into marketing in order to increase “consumption.” The Joe Camel ad campaign revealed how effortlessly children were impacted by ads, claiming it to be as well known as “Mickey Mouse.”
Eric Schlosser argues that marketing to children is the easiest and most strategic way to meet sales forecasts. In his book Fast Food Nation, Schlosser states that, “eight year olds are considered ideal customers; they have about sixty-five years of purchasing in front of them.” Children are extremely malleable and easily influenced as they are forming their habits, opinions, and tastes. When companies market to kids, it is likely that the child will continue to purchase from that company as they grow up. The fast food industry greatly relies on its familiarity and consistency.
He writes that advertisers collect data on children using many means such as conducting surveys, organizing focus groups, creating clubs, and requesting information from young consumers through the internet. He believes that due to the abundance of children watching television, more advertisements are being broadcasted on children’s cable networks. For his final topic, Schlosser identifies the cross-promotions between fast-food companies and other industries. As stated by Schlosser, a considerable amount of the fast-food industry has collaborated with leading manufactures, sports leagues, and Hollywood studios. For an example, he uses the global marketing agreement shared by Disney and Kroc’s corporations, believing that the integration of two large brands is beneficial to the sales and profit of both companies involved.
Eric Schlosser, the author of “Kid Kustomers”, puts a spotlight on the marketing on children. He starts off by talking about the effect on present day marketing. Companies like phone, oil, and automobile are targeting the children the most. He argues that kid-based companies weren’t that bad in the past, but now there are tons of companies who only focus on children. He has provided a lot of studies that support his explanation on marketing strategies.
“The general public apparently believes subliminal advertising exists” (Broyles 393) however, what effects, if any, are there to the people that view them? There is a belief that companies can influence our behavior in life to the extent where they can, in part, remove the consumers ' choice in their purchases. The idea of advertising firms crafting advertisements with hidden messages that influence the audience to shop at stores, buy a certain product or even which foods we ingest is common in contemporary culture. David Zinczenko addresses many concerns about the marketing and health impacts of the fast food industry in his article, “Don’t Blame the Eater”. Zinczenko says is directly, “Fast-Food companies are marketing to children a product
cereal products are commonly advertised to children through the use of colourful, affable mascots; in fact, 54% of cereal ads use a branded character to promote their product (Kline 93). Toucan Sam is a prime example of such a character, and after decades of repeated exposure through TV advertisements, this cartoon bird has become synonymous with the Froot Loops brand. This essay will analyze and evaluate a particular Froot Loops TV advertisement part one of their “Fruit Monster” ad campaign, which depicts a giant alien monster who comes to Earth and kidnaps Toucan Sam in his search for Froot Loops cereal. Like most sugary cereals, Froot Loops’ target audience is children, and this advertisement targets them effectively. The use of food techniques
In doing so, he evaluates the importance of studying children’s behavior to learn more about their tastes. Schlosser claims that many advertisers, “ conduct surveys of children in shopping malls ... analyze children’s artwork, send cultural anthropologists into homes, stores, fast food restaurants…” (Schlosser 44) By studying what children do and do not like, ads are specific to the age group and likely to draw more attention because they are clear in their
Modern Americans are still motivated to spend on various products, whether they are useful and necessary or not, as the result of powerful mass advertising campaigns, widely broadcast through many forms of media. Children and young adults are usually the main targets for such campaigns. It is estimated that the average American child watches between 25,000 to 40,000 television commercials per year so advertising undeniably has a great power over the young minds, who in turn would influence their parents and guardians (Shah, 2010). More than 30 billion dollars are spent by families every year as the result of this strategy, which is progressively adapted by many companies (Shah, 2010). Additionally, thanks to these advertisements, people pay more attention to keeping up with the current trend, with what is considered the most up to date rather than the overall necessity of the product.
The fast food and ink food companies manipulate their psychology in ways that most people would never notice. In the short video, The Myth of Choice, they discuss how businesses use flashy colors, catchy slogans, and cartoon characters in their ads to make kids want to eat there. They use teams of people who know how a kid’s brain works, they help pick out the characters that children will like more and the colours that their eyes will be attracted to. What they do, works too. Its one of the reasons why a kid, or anyone really, is more likely to pick one of these fast food places over eating something healthy.
Skittles is a brand of sweets, produced and marketed by the Wrigley Company, owned by Mars, Inc.. Skittles’ values and principles are the ones shared by the Wrigley Company and Mars Incorporated, like the Mars Five Principles—“Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom” Accordingly to Skittles’ brand book, their average consumer is “Is 12-17 years of age; owns an exotic pet, such as an iguana; loves playing sports like basketball; wishes he/she could fly; dreams of someday being a rock star, astronaut or possibly some kind of knight; enjoys skateboarding and rollerblading in his/her free time; wears large hats and other popular clothing; is very school-spirited”. One can conclude that the target group are individuals of any gender between 12 and 17 years of age, that the brand presents itself as not having a serious attitude and is school children-oriented. From what can be accessed from the brand’s presentation on social media outlets is that it does not separate itself from the aesthetical part of the product, may it be regarding the website being coated in a colourful manner just as the Skittles themselves or the slogan, “Taste the Rainbow”.
The corporate giant Viacom, however, faced difficulties marketing to such audience. Stubborn teenagers are unresponsive to conventional marketing messages. By conducting focus groups, researchers have learned that teenagers respond to ‘cool’. Accordingly, the merchandise industry had to embrace new marketing strategies.
Kids can be taught that what’s on an ad isn’t necessarily what they need.” At the end, marketers must maintain an appropriate structure or strategy without using people in a bad way. If it’s possible for a child being obsessed with a toy and food box, then it’s possible for him to like a sweet fruit box with an interesting book or comics, magazines etc. if we can support or teach them. We must accept that healthy food, exercising, protecting environment, enjoying beautiful sides of life, even choosing the best music or watching the proper advertisement - they are the best solutions for a good future even though they may be hard for some people to adapt.
“What Kids Know: McDonalds, Toyota, Disney.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 12 Apr. 2010, abcnews.go.com/Business/kids-mcdonalds-toyota-disney/story?id=10333145. Accessed 2 March 2018. Story, Mary, and Simone French. “Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US.”
Today McDonald’s has many more competitors such as; Carl’s Jr., Sonic, Chick-Fil-A and Burger King, which now provides kid’s meals with toys. Parents are infuriated by the fact that the free toy is making their children want the unhealthy food, yet they feel obligated to buy the meal to make their child happy. Though these children are still more interested in the popular the toy and will beg their parents to buy the meal from the fast food industry. Nevertheless many parents have stood up against the toys in their child’s meal. In Santa Clara, California there has been a banment of toys in children's meals.
For example Lego, Hasbro, Disney, Mattel, Barbie, Nerf, MEGA Bloks, and Fisher Price. Todays’ children “Generation-Z” have unique characteristics in many ways as compare to past generations. The ad film-makers, advertisers, and marketers always try to formulate new ways to attract their targeted customers, because of its rule the best way you attract to the customer and most likely to change their purchase intention and influence their decisions. The marketers and advertisers here use advertisement which targets the children are always based on anthropomorphism; using of non-living things like cartoons, animations, songs, logos, jingles, and different characters that advertisers keep in mind their audiences to attract the children, i.e. MacDonald, Disney, Barbie are the best example of
