Advertising And The Battle For Children's Minds

Advertising is war, and the land to be conquered and pillaged is the human mind. I saw an incident today that shows how early that war begins, as advertisers seek to cultivate and capture the loyalties of ever younger consumers.

I had worked all day today without eating. So, in a desire to get the fastest meal possible, I stopped into my local McDonalds. While I dined, I noticed a bright red toy display, featuring toy plastic characters from a children's movie installed by the front counter. Interestingly, the entire display stood no higher than four feet. In fact, an adult would need to come down on bended knee to see what was in this display. But the determined warriors of advertising had a different prey in mind . . .

I watched as a young mother and her child, perhaps about four years of age, walked to the counter. The child walked right to the toy display which stood at perfect eye level for her. "Mommy, buy me one of these," she begged, pointing to the small toys displayed before her. Well, needless to say, that child had one of those toys sitting on her tray when they sat down to eat.

There is a macabre intelligence behind purposely placing a display of movie-branded toys so that a target audience of five-year-olds can be lured into making a purchasing decision. Indeed, the child made that purchase, the adult merely paid for it! Oddly enough, as I observed that mother and child, I could see more evidence of how much influence advertising had on them. Every item of clothing the child wore, coat, pants, blouse, and sneakers, had either an external designer label or a picture of a character connected with a children's television show or movie. The mother was also "under the influence," wearing a coat emblazoned on the back with a foot-wide graphic of the designers trademark.

As a web designer, I know all to well the need to appeal to consumers. It's what marketing is all about. However, is the creation of five-year-old consumers controlled by marketing and celebrity a healthy thing?

Clinical psychologist Allen D. Kanner, PhD, observes that this advertising is creating an epidemic of childhood materialism. Thanks to advertising, he says, children have become convinced that they're inferior if they don't have an endless array of new products. As psychologists learn more about the workings of the pre-teen mind, many are helping marketers to target children more effectively. "Psychologists who help advertisers are essentially helping them manipulate children to believe in the capitalistic message, when all the evidence shows that believing in that message is bad for people," says Tim Kasser, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill "That's unethical."

How do you feel about the battle for your child's mind?