Facts About Marketing To Children

Commercial Television

• The average American child today is exposed to an estimated 40,000 television commercials a year — over 100 a day.⁴
• A task force of the American Psychological Association (APA) has recommended restrictions on advertising that targets children under the age of eight, based on research showing that children under this age are unable to critically comprehend televised advertising messages and are prone to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate and unbiased.⁵

Beyond the Tube

• According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, youth are multitasking their way through a wide variety of electronic media daily, juggling iPods and instant messaging with TV and cell phones. In fact, they pack 8.5 hours of media exposure into 6.5 hours each day, seven days a week — which means that they spend more time plugged in than they do in the classroom.⁶
• By the mid 1990s, direct marketing, promotions, and sponsorships actually accounted for 80 percent of marketing dollars.⁷

New Dream Poll, “Nag Factor”

According to a national survey commissioned by the Center for a New American Dream:

• American children aged 12 to 17 will ask their parents for products they have seen advertised an average of nine times until the parents finally give in.
• More than 10 percent of 12- to 13-year-olds admitted to asking their parents more than 50 times for products they have seen advertised.
• More than half of the children surveyed (53%) said that buying certain products makes them feel better about themselves. The number is even higher among 12- to 13-year-olds: 62% say that buying certain products makes them feel better about themselves.
• Nearly a third of those surveyed (32%) admitted to feeling pressure to buy certain products such as clothes and CDs because their friends have them. Over half of 12- to 13-year-olds (54%) admitted to feeling such pressure.
• The nagging strategy is paying dividends for kids and marketers alike: 55% of kids surveyed said they are usually successful in getting their parents to give in.⁸

What Kids Really Want

• According to a 2003 New American Dream poll, 57 percent of children age 9-14 would rather do something fun with their mom or dad than go to the mall to go shopping.⁹

In Schools

• The American Beverage Association (formerly National Soft Drink Association) at one point estimated that nearly two thirds of schools nationwide had exclusive “pouring rights” contracts with soda companies.¹⁰
• An informal survey of Channel One advertisers from a few years ago found that 27 percent of the ads were for junk food. The next highest category, at 10 percent, was military recruitment.¹¹ Channel One also advertises movies, TV shows, and video games featuring violence, strong sexual content, and alcohol and tobacco use.¹²

Harming Children’s Well-Being

• Obesity: Rising levels of childhood obesity track an explosion of junk food ads in recent years¹³.
• Emotional well-being: Author and Boston College sociology professor Juliet Schor finds links between immersion in consumer culture and depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and conflicts with parents¹⁴.
• Self-image and sexual behavior: Wheelock College education professor Diane Levin sees correlations with sexual imagery in children’s ads and increases in eating disorders among girls, adding that as “children struggle to make sense of mature sexual content, they are robbed of valuable time for age-appropriate developmental tasks, and they may begin to engage in precocious sexual behavior.”¹⁵
• Financial self-control: National surveys reveal that kids are leaving high school without a basic understanding of issues relating to savings and credit card debt. No surprise, then, that over the past decade, credit card debt among 18-24 year olds more than doubled¹⁶.

Footnotes

1. Susan Linn, Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood (New York: The New Press, 2004), 1.
2. Juliet Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (New York: Scribner, 2004), 21.
3. Ann Hulbert, “Tweens ‘R’ Us,” The New York Times, November 28, 2004, www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/magazine/28WWLN.html?ex=1259384400&%2338;en=056ae35fb63f65eb&%2338;ei=5088& (accessed March 8, 2006).
4. American Psychological Association, “Television Advertising Leads to Unhealthy Habits in Children; Says APA Task Force,” February 23, 200 (accessed March 8, 2006).
5. Ibid.
6. Donald F. Roberts, Ulla G. Foehr, Victoria Rideout, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, March 9, 2005, www.kff.org/entmedia/7251.cfm (accessed March 9, 2006).
7. Schor, 85.
8. “Thanks to Ads, Kids Won’t Take No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No for an Answer,” Center for a New American Dream, 2002, www.newdream.org/kids/poll.php (accessed March 5, 2006).
9. “What Do Kids Really Want That Money Can’t Buy?” Center for a New American Dream, 2003, www.newdream.org/publications/bookrelease.php (accessed March 8, 2006).
10. Katherine Battle Horgen, “Big Food, Big Money, Big Children,” in Childhood Lost: How American Culture is Failing Our Kids, Sharna Olfman, ed, 128. (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2005).
11. “Fat Profits From Channel One’s Junk Food Advertising: 1 Out Of 4 Ads is for Junk Food / Soft Drinks,” Obligation, Inc., December 9, 2002,  (accessed March 8, 2006).
12. “Channel One,” Commercial Alert, www.commercialalert.org/issues-landing.php?subcategory_id 32& category=2 (accessed March 8, 2006).
13. American Psychological Association 2004.
14. Schor, 167-172.
15. Diane Levin, as quoted in Michelle Stockwell, Childhood for Sale: Consumer Culture’s Bid for Our Kids (Washington, DC: Progressive Policy Institute, July 2005), 2,(accessed March 8, 2006).
16. “Young People Taking on More Debt,” www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/debt_5-25.html (accessed March 8, 2006).