“What do you call a consumer who wants to buy everything you have, doesn 't care what it costs and is less than five feet tall? A marketer 's dream? Nope. You call them kids.” (AdRelevance Intelligence Report, 2000). Nowadays, children (age 4-12) already have a sense of fashion and attitudes that we may not see in children back in 1980s-1990s. Based on the “Consuming Kids” (2008) and our daily experience we can see and learned that children tends to follows or try to imitate what they see, it can be from television, magazine, school, and sometimes what they see in the real life. In “Consuming Kids” documentary we learned that the total of money that children spend in a year is about $40 billion and the influence of the kids to adult spending …show more content…
And some of the sociological studies has been used in kids marketing. Kids marketing can be found at home, school and even our neighborhood. In home kids learn the brand from television, parents, magazine, books and paper. Everything is part of socialization and there are many agents of socialization. As a human being we were expected to learn and form some attachment to some things or brands from socialization. We learned a lot from primary socialization that is primarily happen in family. “Families provide the primary source of our early emotional attachment and learning… also play a critical role in transmitting culture…” (Tepperman & Curtis, 2013, p. 58). As we know that a child is bombarded with brands, however family always be the main agent of socialization for the company to introduce their brand to children. We may not aware that we try to sell the brand to our kids, but that’s the truth. As an adult we will buy our kids some toys, in the process of buying toys we unconsciously will buy the same brand that we had as a child. For example Hot Wheels, Barbie, etc. Human being also learned from anticipatory socialization. Anticipatory Socialization is “learning the codes and norms of a certain group that one is not a part of.” (Macneill, 2014a). Anticipatory socialization is not something that we learned then try to do it now, rather it provide us the information for us to …show more content…
However is the positive impact out match the negative impact? There are plenty of negative impact to the children from kids marketing, out numbering the positives impacts. As we are discussing right now there are more children out there that become a new victims of kids marketing. Kids these days already understand Social conflict and Symbolic Interactionism in their own terms. As it is defined in symbolic interactionism, “people act toward things based on the meaning those thing have for them” (Macneill, 2014a). Kids will say some foods is better than the other not because they ever taste the food itself but because of the brand the company put on the food packaging. They will go to a supermarket or stores and says that they like the clothes even when adults thinks that the clothes is hideous, just because of the brand or their idols wear it. It isn’t about the style or shapes anymore, now everything is depend on the meaning that item has for the kids. Kids may think that they going to make more friends, become cooler & famous in school if they use what their favourite idols use. When the children wear what their idols wearing, they may be physically ready to wear it. But they are not ready for the critique that society going to throw at
The land of the free, brave and consumerism is what the United States has become today. The marketing industry is exploiting children through advertisement, which is ridiculously unfair to children. We are around advertisement and marketing where ever we go; at times, we don't even notice that we are being targeted to spend our money. As a matter of fact, we live to buy; we need and want things constantly, and it will never stop. The film, Consuming Kids , written by Adriana Barbaro and directed by Jeremy Earp, highlights children as this powerful demographic, with billions of dollars in buying power, but the lack of understanding of marketers’ aggressive strategies. Children are easily influenced and taken advantage of, which is why commercialization of children needs to stop. Commercialization to children leads to problems that parents do not even know are happening such as social, future, and rewired childhood problems. Government regulations need to put a stop to corporations that live, breathe and sell the idea of consumerism to children and instead show that genuine relationships and values are what are important.
Eric schlosser, a writer for Atlantic Monthly, addresses in his article, “Kid Kustomer”, the various marketing strategies used on children to American parents after the success of ads for the young. Schlosser exemplifies how companies market their products to children in order to convince parents to recognize the fact that the advertisements produced by companies turn children into customers. He employs parallel syntax, figurative language, and a objective tone to accomplish his goal.
Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year worldwide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities.
It is evident that today’s advertisements for teen clothing are neither healthy, nor ethical, to use as a way to attract teen consumers; however, companies are getting away with this behavior, because their effective and inappropriate advertisements are merely innuendos. The modern label placed on teens is said to be the primary contender for the cause of eating disorders, suicide, bullying, and depression. Fortunately, groups of teens are getting together to put an end to these unethical advertisements and the messages the ads give off to teens; because of their efforts, the amount of effect that advertisements have on teens now, may dramatically plummet sometime in the near future. In my opinion, it is crucial that us teens make a profound alteration to the way teen merchandise is advertised, which in turn will end the knavish behavior of ...
...protecting it from weather. Youths may represent themselves with choices of fashion, maintain the acceptance from peers by dressing along with the fashion, differentiate themselves with stylish or luxury goods, and express themselves with preferences of clothing. The choices of young people may be affected by the trend, society, and the media. However, choices may also be a source of anxiety. For instance, that a function of advertising is to assuage the self-doubt that accompanies choice. Consumption would be a much less pleasurable practice if it was both subject to ever-expanding free choice and the decisions made were fundamental components of a reflexive process of identity-formation. Consumption may be anxiety-provoking for some groups; there is a real element of risk involved in choosing inappropriately. But there are many mechanisms that serve to compensate.
In society today, the clothing that someone wears is basically a billboard for his or her personal, or family's financial situation. For children in public schools, fitting in with the popular, or most fashionable people is probably the most important thing to them. When children are preoccupied wi...
Commercials make the viewer think about the product being advertised. Because of the amount of television children watch throughout the week, it allows the children to be exposed to the information over and over again. Per year, children are known to view thousands of fast food commercials. On a daily basis, a teen will usually view five advertisements and a child aged six to eleven will see around four advertisements (Burger Battles 4). Businesses use this strategy to “speak directly to children” (Ruskin 3). Although the big businesses in the fast ...
As a kid there were numerous things in which I was exposed to and wanted as a result of advertising. Huge companies have set their focus on kids and it shows due to the abundance of things they have been selling and the profit they receive. Since kids are being targeted, the industries use things that will appeal to kids, catch their attention so to speak, and then the children will nag their parents for that particular thing. This is a good thing for the companies, but is it good for the kids? There have been many arguments and disagreements regarding this subject and there are differing viewpoints which make very good points both ways. Have industries gone too far or are they doing just the right amount of commercializing their products?
Socialization occurs in any child’s life on a daily basis no matter where he or she lives or the places that he or she attends. Children are socialized by many people that they are surrounded by, including other children and adults that have various relations to them. Through knowing all of this one could come to the conclusion that socialization is an ongoing process throughout the lifespan. In order to fully understand the socialization of a child, observations have to be made and compared to different theories.
Agents of socialization in short are the people, groups, and social institutions, as well as the interactions within these groups that influence a person’s social and self-development. Agents of socialization are believed to provide the critical information needed for children to function successfully as a member of society. Some examples of such agents are family, neighborhood, schools, peers, religion, sports, the workplace, and especially the mass media. Each agent of socialization is linked to another. For example, in the media, symbolic images affect both the individual and the society, making the mass media the most controversial socialization agent. One of the most obvious places agents of socialization lay is in the malls of America. Malls are filled with advertisements and consumed by the mass media touching on all levels of society.
Commercialism is the practice of using advertising strategies to appeal to the interests of potential customers for the purpose of turning a profit, and it relies heavily on consumerism. Millions of people all over the world are exposed to advertisements everyday that are created to increase public desire in different companies’ products, and many of these people are naïve children. The desires of children are often exploited by large corporations because people of younger ages are just seen as corruptible minds. A study shows that children from the ages of four all the way up to their teens spend more than $130 billion put together every year (“Youth-Oriented Advertising”). The entire notion of consumerism since its beginnings has always been persuasive and manipulative. After World War II, Americans were compe...
The cycle of socialization is a process through which social identities are created, and in effect, each individual represents and is affected by their social identity. According to the cycle of socialization, the first stop in the socialization process is outside of one’s control—one is socialized even before they are born. Our social identities are predetermined, and we are born in a world with roles, rules, and assumptions already in place. Our family and role models teach these rules and roles to us, for they are the shapers of expectations, values, and norms. The first step in the cycle of socialization is directly related to mental models. In the beginning of the socialization process, we are taught certain rules and roles to follow. Ultimately, we are taught how to act by our families who raise us, which shapes our mental models. At a young age, my mom dressed me in dresses and put me in dance classes. My girl friends and I were all expected to take dance lessons and to enjoy playing house with each other. My dad taught my brothers when they were young to act tough and to play sports like football and hockey. During my childhood, I never questioned my parents. I enjoyed doing what “girls are supposed to do,” and I felt comfortable doing what all the other girls were doing in my school. I agree that parents are responsible for socializing their children and they have a huge influence on how we act our gender and our social roles. As a result, our mental models, which shape how we act, are created and enforced at a young age. Socialization is reinforced throughout our lifetime not only through our parents and teachers, but also through the messages from institutions and our culture.
The below drawn table no 1.1 demonstrates the agents of socialization of consumer and their impact on the children. It explains that individual factors (socio-economic status, age and life period, gender), socializing factors (family, peer-group, school) and learning mechanisms (cognitive development theory, social learning and observational learning)
Advertising has influenced teenagers in a profound way. The influence of advertising has affected teenagers in a way they are persistently exposed by means of television programs, articles in magazines, product endorsement ads, and through the internet. Although teenagers are excessively exposed, how they perceive and process advertisements ultimately determines how they are influenced. With that said, the perception towards advertisements can be amalgamated between reality and fantasy, which evidently has both negative and positive impacts. Advertisers strategically capitalize on what is trending in youth culture which makes teenagers most pervasive to wanting to fit in. The societal culture in advertising plays a crucial role in the way teenagers
Joung and Park-Poaps (2013) concentrated their research on university students in America; their study of 232 people was based overwhelmingly on young, Caucasian (87.5%), females (91.8%). (Joung and Park-Poaps 2013). Their demographic characteristics could suggest a similarity in upbringing and background, which could in turn mean they have learned similar consumer behaviours as studies have shown young children learn their attitudes and behaviours from their peers and family members (Ward 1974).