The average American child sees about 40,000 television commercials every year. It is no surprise that McDonald’s Golden Arches are more recognizable to children than the Christian cross. The marketing industry spends more than $15 billion dollars a year to shape your kids into nagging, insatiable cradle-to-grave consumers. McDonald’s spends an estimated $1.3 billion dollars a year on advertising.
Brands are cunningly hidden in movies, merchandise tie-ins, promoted on educational programs, included in school materials, given as free gifts in hospitals - all designed to connect with children in every conceivable manner. Marketing companies are becoming increasingly sly. Author and psychologist Susan Linn explains that while parents are trying to set boundaries, marketing executives are working night and day to undermine their authority.
Even though parents might successfully limit advertising exposure in the home, children are now being inundated at their schools. Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children From the Onslaught of Marketing & Advertising explains how in-school advertisements escalated in the 1990s. “It now includes (but isn’t limited to) corporate-sponsored newscasts, field trips, classroom materials, vending machines, gymnasiums, walls, and whole buildings," writes Linn. Brands like Exxon Mobil, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Pepsi, Coke, Burger King and the American Coal Foundation are all present in American schools. As Mike Searles, then president of Kids “R” Us, put it in the late 1980s, “…if you own this child at an early age, you can own this child for years to come.
Consuming Kids is a wonderful read for anyone interested in knowing more about the insidious world of child-targeted advertising. North American parents will be shocked to learn their beloved munchkins are literally under advertising attack every waking moment of their young lives.
Order this book on Amazon.com Consuming Kids
Visit: http://www.consumingkids.com/
Publisher: Anchor Books
288 Pages
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