Reports that advertisers are busy reworking their messages for the
four- to twelve -year-old set. Capitalizing on consumer kids; 'Innovative
play techniques'; What turns kids on; More.
By
PT Staff, published on March 01, 1992
Brat-Pack Consumers
The consumer culture may be winding down for adults, but hang on to
your Mickey Mouse ears: It's just gearing up for kids. Advertisers are
busy reworking their messages for the four- to 12-year-old set
Yes, it's no longer permissible to let little ones get away with
being a mere "$7.2 billion primary market." You now have to look at kids
as the means for getting on their parents' cases for far bigger bucks. As
a New York-based organization called the Marketing Institute exhorts, "Be
cool and capitalize on consumer kids"; and it enlists the aid of
psychology in "understanding children as a $132 billion influence
market."
If corporate America needed help on how to milk kiddies, they got
it at a recent conference put on by the institute in Coronado,
California. There, Barbie, Mickey Mouse, and Tinkerbell were trotted out
to motivate them in two days of back-to-back seminars that r-an the gamut
from the absurd to the outrageous:
o "innovative play techniques" such as "simulated shopping" for
children
o a presentation about "new kids on the road"--kids traveling with
their parents
o "what turns kids on and how to use this information for more
effective selling," and other strategies
o "nontraditional media," which translates into "marketers are
turning to the classroom to deliver their messages."
Get the picture? If you haven't, you will.
Illustration
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