James Leung
ENG 11000-B FC
March 4, 2015
Kapitalism for Kids
In his
article "Kid Kustomers", investigative journalist an writer Eric
Schlosser addresses the topic of marketing being directed towards kids and
argues that advertisements for kids have grown enormously in the past two
decades due to its effectiveness to sell product and the lack of
regulation. He supports his claim by
supplying evidence of how influential child mascots in advertisements are, then
demonstrating the profitability of child clubs in establishments such as Burger
King, and finally explaining the FTC's rejected ban on child advertising
through television. Schlosser's purpose
is to expose the large trend in marketing towards children in order to prevent
companies profiting off of the immature minds of kids absorbing the information
from the ads. Because of his informative
tone, it seems as he writes for an audience of readers ignorant to the large
marketing toward kids and of readers that are parents.
I also
believe that child marketing has become widespread due to its ability to
increase sales and the lack of regulation on it. Children are so impressionable that when they
see something that peeks even a bit of interest in an advertisement, the next
moment they are asking their parents to buy it for them. Television is plagued by advertisements that
appeal to children. As Schlosser
mentioned, Youth Market System Consulting has a division specifically dedicated
to creating mascots for children that match their child target age group. Children can remember an advertising mascot
for their entire lives, always having the brand of the advertiser in the back
of the minds. As a child I would always
tell my parents to buy me Fruity Pebbles cereal. The thing is I barely ate the cereal because
I didn't even eat breakfast. The reason
I constantly nagged my parents at the grocery store to buy the cereal was that
I loved the Flintstones commercials that were advertising them all the
time. A product can be completely
useless to a child but they can still want it if marketed to them with a proper
mascot.
Additionally,
I agree that the results that come from children's clubs are extremely
profitable. Schlosser argues that
children's clubs are great for collecting consumer data from the children and Kids
love joining clubs because it gives them a sense of exclusiveness and
friendship. The incentive of being part
of a group lures kids in and ends up trapping parents who have to pay for
whatever the establishment of the club has to offer. Being part of a club also means that the
child will be committed to going back to the club consistently, resulting in a regularly
attending customer.
Schlosser
also discusses the FTC's proposed ban on child ads and how it was eventually
turned down. The Federal Trade
Commission decided to take action and proposed a ban on child ads. The proposal
was lead by the head of the FTC, Michael Pertschuk, and was supported by several
groups. However, there were also many
groups that did not seem to like the ban as much. The opposing groups lobbied Congress aiming
to stop any bans on child ads. They even
ended up suing Pertschuk so that he wouldn't be able to attend any FTC meetings
about the proposal. As you can tell from
the abundance of child ads on television now, the ban was rejected. I can't believe how far the companies who
profit from child marketing are willing to go to protect their sales. How is it fair for the FTC to make a decision
when the head of the FTC cannot even attend the meetings pertaining to the
issue. Children aren't mature enough to
make their own decisions and on top of that, the supporters for child advertisement
took away the voice of the people trying to defend the children.
The growth of child
advertisements overall is not very surprising.
For instance, you have toy companies left and right telling kids to buy
the hottest toy. Most of the time it's
not even just one toy, it's usually many toys at once and the advertisements
are practically shoving down children's throats the idea of having to
"collect them all". The fact
that advertisers continue to use this business method illustrates that the
method is working and sales are going up.
Lastly, as long as child marketing is profitable and unrestricted, child
ads will continue to grow abundantly.
After this assignment, I feel I did not grow much in terms of writing. I learned technique of writing a rhetorical precis but beyond that I do not feel like my writing improved significantly. The assignment did give a lot of content to learn about though, so perhaps it strengthened by analytic abilities. My opinion on the topic of the essay by Schlosser did not change from the time before I read the article and to the time after I finished writing my summary and response. However, you could say my opinion against child advertising was strengthened in a sense.
ReplyDeleteI really like your response essay because you make the whole thing about gaining profit. And then you list examples of how companies chase this potential profit by creating mascots and clubs. I like this approach because you made it clear what the purpose of the companies behaving this way is, and I believe that too, its all about where the money is and it's crazy how these companies can take advantage. I think you have a good ending by saying that the companies are effective at doing it and will continue to do so. I like your essay overall because it has a good balance between giving me enough summary and enough response.
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