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Consuming Kids

The documentary, Consuming Kids, talks about the purchasing power of children.  Children have tremendous influence over what their parents buy, whether its the type of car, food, clothing, or even phone plans.  Marketers rely on this when designing their ad campaigns for children, especially when it comes to nagging.  The more a child nags their parents about certain products, the more likely the parents are to buy them.

In the late 1970's, there was an attempt to ban ads on children's television under the Federal Trade Commission.  By 1984, the Reagan administration passed a law that took away authority to control ads directed at children, completely deregulating children's television.  This allowed advertisers to market directly to children.  The idea was to get to them as early and as often as possible.  In the 1980's and 90's, every cartoon had toys associated with it, insinuating the brands into children's lives through the characters.  Nowadays, children are inundated with over 30,000 marketing ads everyday.

Comments

  1. I like how you explained how the more a child naggs the more the parents get fed up and will just buy it for them. This is defiantly why children have a huge say so when it comes to parents spending.

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