Orlando Sanchez: Summary and Response-Kid Kustomers

Orlando Sanchez

3/4/13

English 11000-B

Summary and Response: “Kid Kustomers”

            Journalist and author, Eric Schlosser, in his article “Kid Kustomers” , addresses the topic of marketing campaigns by large companies aimed specifically at children and argues that these corporations take advantage of the innocence of children to make a profit. He supports this claim by stating that these marketing campaigns have used cartoon characters to advertise products not for children such as cigarettes, he then talks about television as a way for these corporations to target children before stating the proposed ban on child centered marketing that the FTC was trying to get into effect. Schlosser’s purpose is to expose how vulnerable children are to advertisements aimed at them, especially those shown on television and to address the grand effect that television has today on children. The author’s audience likely consists of those interested in advertising and the effects that television has on society as is evident through his criticism of both when discussing children and statistical evidence to back up his claims; he addresses readers with a tone that is aggressive and serious.

            Initially, I did not agree with Schlosser’s view that advertisement aimed at children is wrong. However after giving it some thought and really taking into account how simple the mind of a young child is, I have come to agree with the author. While some might not see the wrong in it, it takes advantage of both the children and the adults responsible for them. I was appalled at the statistics used by Schlosser which state that favorite commercials among children were advertisements for Camel cigarettes and Budweiser beer. This shows how easily children are influenced, even by products not directly aimed at them.

From personal experience with my own childhood and watching my younger siblings grow up, kids always want whatever product that may showcase or be associated with their favorite cartoon or movie character, whether it be toys or even clothes. Schlosser writes about this in his article when he states that Joe Camel ran an ad campaign “which used a hip cartoon character to sell cigarettes.” clearly it is wrong to market cigarettes to children, but this also supports a next point made in the article, which is that these ads are also inadvertently aimed at parents. The fact that the Joe Camel cigarettes used a cartoon character might cause a child to influence their guardian to buy that brand instead of another. Schlosser supports this using Professor James McNeal’s analysis on the different “children’s requesting styles and appeals”. McNeal speaks about different types of “nags used by children to get their parent to buy a certain product, these range from a pleading nag to a persistent nag or even a forceful nag, further supporting the strain put on the parents through these child marketing campaigns.

            The author also makes mentions of television being the primary method for child advertising, which I agree with because the amount of time children spend watching television is astonishing. Schlosser states that the average American child spends 21 hours a week watching TV, where they are exposed to these advertisements. Another medium which I felt the author did not elaborate much on was the Internet. Perhaps not a huge factor before the year 2000, the internet is now perhaps a bigger medium for advertising than television. Advertisements are present all over the internet, whether someone is just browsing or watching a video on a website such as YouTube. Even the networks for children such as Disney or Nickelodeon now have websites aimed at children where they can further influence the buying habits of them and their parents.

            Some may argue that these corporations are only trying to stay in business and that what they are doing is not morally wrong. However, these corporations purposely target children and make them their intended consumer base. Schlosser states that many big corporations now have a division whose main goal is to research the likes and interests of children with the intent of making then marketing products based off of the research to children.  I feel that the proposed ban on ads aimed at children under the age of seven proposed by the Federal Trade Commission was a reasonable one, because as stated in the article many times, children are not able to tell the difference between normal programming and advertising.

            The article speaks about the proposed FTC ban failing and the outrageous ads that caused outrage many years ago not being a problem anymore. Although I agree with Schlosser, I feel that this issue needs to be revisited so that the audience can be provided with more up to date statistics and facts surrounding the topic. The world of today is much different that the world of the late 1900’s however, advertising aimed at children is still present and it is the role of the adults responsible for young children to limit their exposure to both advertisements and television as a whole.