Children and marketing

Children are in many ways the ideal recipient of advertising messages for marketing. They are more impressionable than adults, their decisions are not based on rational thinking. You just need to get their attention. Commercial communication with children must also have its own rules and ethical considerations. For example, American research by the Institute of Medicine showed that the excessive influence of advertising on children is an important factor in the increase in childhood obesity. More than half of the marketing ads aimed at children in the US are for fast-food restaurants, carbonated drinks, sweets and breakfast cereals. In this context, the ethical aspect of marketing often appears in its ability to shape children’s diets. “We know that 90% of household food decisions are influenced by children,” says child obesitologist Tom Warshawski. We cannot say that children’s marketing affects children only negatively. It can be very useful, especially if it promotes goods that benefit children.

Children themselves have more and more purchasing power, so they should not be underestimated. Parents are including children in purchasing decisions at younger and younger ages, which provides huge opportunities for marketing. Children go shopping with their parents, are often seated in shopping carts and can focus on the environment around them. Advertising carriers are orientation points for them, which can very quickly gain, but also lose, their attention.

Parents often accede to children’s wishes, which is closely related to the phenomena of the so-called “poster power” and “guilt money”. They also play an important role when shopping with children. “Poster power” is a pejorative term for the behavior of children who persuade their parents to buy a product. “Guilt money” is a term used for a situation where parents, by fulfilling their children’s shopping wishes, buy redemption out of guilt. For example, because they don’t have time for their children or don’t pay enough attention to them, even when shopping is in progress. Divorced parents in particular do not have a child in their care and are often subject to this “buying of indulgences”.

Children are characterized by highly impulsive behavior. Their purchasing decisions are formed and changed only at the point of sale, where children move through the aisles and see the products with their own eyes. They do not filter advertising links, as adults do. At the point of sale, various stimuli affect children much more than adults. Children’s attention span also depends on their age. The basic principles for effective in-store communication, which will interest the younger shopper, are the terms “big, colorful and simple”.