Blog 2: Marketing and Children

I missed Tuesday's class because I was uber sick, and the wifey said no bueno I gotta stay home. The class on Thursday was pretty interesting at least for me. We watched this documentary on advertisement to children. The video started out pretty informative giving a solid background to this field of advertising. First there really wasn't much money spent on advertising to kids, in the 50's and 60's there was a little bit with marketing towards toys, but that was about it. Then in the 60's and 70's there was a growing trend of more marketing towards kids. That was roughly about the time the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) went and set it out that you can't market to under a certain age (I think it was below 8 years old). A lot of companies went to congress and was like.. hey man that’s not fair or legal to tell me I can't market to kids. Congress agreed with the companies and removed that power from the FTC, and that’s when the flood gates opened up.

Oh man did it just skyrocket, I think the statistic was roughly 2.2 billion spent annually towards advertising to kids to around 400 billion today. That is extremely nuts. The companies that advertise to kids are having the mindset to start advertising before birth. They want lifelong loyalty because that means more dollars in the long run. There have been ridiculous long studies on different age gaps and how to tailor an advertisement towards them. Apparently if you’re below 4 you don’t like straight lines, so nearly all of the commercials are filled with circles i.e. tickle me Elmo and his huge round eyes, round head, round body, round legs and arms. The “tweens” are a huge gap anywhere from 14 down to 6 years old. They’re the ones who are begging their parents over and over again to get a specific item.

Its not just commercials that are reaching kids. Just think of all the different ways that our technology has allowed our youth to be reached. Lets follow one product line. A kid see's a commercial on a sponge bob plush toy, a parent buys that toy. The toy has within the box a redeemable code to where you can gain “special” access to their online game. When that kid goes on to that website, they’re required to make a profile that the kid gives up information and depending on the age/location/gender different ads will show up in the bars along side the game. Now more and more kids have cell phones with access to the internet and are playing these games, and advertisers have direct contact to the kid. They could offer a secret text message code to gain access to another secret squirrel hideout on the web site or cell phone game.

To me I didn't realize how much of this was going on. Honestly I see an ad and I have enough cognitive function to differentiate between a need and a want, kids don't. I am very torn on the issue. I may have painted a negative picture, but that is also how the documentary was shown. I don't have any kids, but I plan having them. I am at least informed more about what is going on, and now so are you a bit!

I'll get the name of the documentary and post it when I get that from my Professor. I want to cite correctly where I got almost all of this information.

First week of Marketing

What Did I Learn This Week in Marketing?

Marketing is a very different mindset it seems to me. I thing that so far, it is about latching onto an image or slogan and anchoring your product to that. After time when customers identify that product with the slogan or image then you can branch it a little bit. I think a great example is McDonald's "I'm lovin' it". When that slogan came out, many people already knew of McDonald's, but now they can just do the sound that goes with the song and people can recognize that is "I'm lovin' it". There are a few other slogans that ring off the top of my head... Volkswagen "sign and drive" event. "More saving, more doing, that's the power of home depot".

I also am feeling I have to retrain how I used to think marketing was. I think if I go in with the mindset of what I already thought it was, then I will just be left in the dust. I should probably just wipe the slate clean and go from step one to accomplish whatever mission/assignment I have set before me. I know I can't follow the notions I get from Mad Men! That archaic chauvinist way of thinking will not get me anywhere. Retraining the way I think marketing was seems to be the only logical thing.

In other news this week our class is piloting this new web product for our school called "Canvas". For those of you who don't know my school puts out and receives information largely web based. We have classes, then we get our assignments from the internet, and return them in the same fashion. That program title that was/is used is called "E College". Now we are using this Canvas thing and so far its been a forced cluster. There are probably great things that Canvas uses/creates that E College doesn't, but there is still a learning curve that was forced too early. On the first day of class we had assignments due on Canvas before we knew how to work the program.

The first week of classes so far seem to follow what I have had the last 3 semesters. The professors talk about EVERYTHING that we are probably going to go over, and it seems daunting, then we start just completing things. Before you know it our semester is already over, and we've learned something. Every semester just piles on the work first day, but I have known for a long time you can't complete everything all at once. You have to work slowly and diligently towards your goals.