Category: marketing to kids

Posted in advertising, American Academy of Pediatrics, digital parenting, marketing to kids, media messages, parents and technology

The Media Is the Message for Our Children

Posted on by Marti Weston
Listen to a Los Angles CBS video about the story.
Listen to a Los Angles CBS video about the controversy and read the story.

In light of the extraordinary negative media messages about body image in children’s lives, ensuring the strength and confidence of preadolescents and teens is a continuing challenge for parents and teachers. So much of the advertising markets thinness, popularity, sexuality, and one type of attractiveness, so it can be difficult for adults to counteract the effect of the of this pressure on a child.

Sometimes the entire ethos of a company emphasizes values that we do not want children in our care to adopt.

A distressing article over at the Huffington Post, A Message to Abercrombie’s CEO from a Former Fat Girl by Sara Taney Humphreys, highlights how one company has made exclusion, intentionally or otherwise, a part of its mission. Humphreys’ article isn’t about something that happened recently, but rather a quote from a 2006 Salon article about the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. While the article is more than six years old, the comments are disturbing, especially given the number of children who like to shop at Abercrombie and the many others who struggle with body image. Below is a quote from the Salon article.

As far as Jeffries is concerned, America’s unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he says. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

You can also listen to this ABC Chicago television story (after an airlines advertisement), including interviews with teenagers — many of whom can fit into the Abercrombie clothes but choose not to buy them. The teens are demonstrating at one of the stores in Chicago.

You might also want to look over the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) statement on media and children.

Posted in digital footprints, digital parenting, marketing to kids, media literacy, parents and technology, privacy, teaching digital kids

Can We Stop Confusing Kids’ Privacy with Transparency?

Posted on by Marti Weston

Our digital society hasn’t figured out what to do about privacy. More importantly, it hasn’t figured what to do about the privacy of our kids — we keep confusing privacy with transparency.

It’s problematic enough that adults are diving willy-nilly into the digital world, sharing everything about themselves, private and not so private, but it’s even worse to observe a world where everything a child does and almost every mistake he or she makes is now public. These days we are giving children and adolescents no cover and no protection as they blithely explore the digital world while making what in any other era would be common and developmentally appropriate errors.

Lest I sound like a digital Luddite, I’m not. I love participating in the activities of my digital world, actively but moderately, and I have an arsenal of digital gadgets in my purse, book bag, and lying around my house. As an educator, however, I am keenly aware of how much we are forgetting to nurture and honor kids’ developmental stages as they grow up in this digitally dense world. Part of solving that problem involves ensuring that children have a guaranteed amount of privacy.

Continue reading “Can We Stop Confusing Kids’ Privacy with Transparency?” →

Posted in American Academy of Pediatrics, digital parenting, marketing to kids, media literacy, parents and technology

Kids’ Television Shows as Advertising

Posted on by Marti Weston

Today the medium is a lot less about a message and more about the toys!

Just about everyone — parents, teachers, grandparents, youth leaders — should read the New York Times article, Hasbro, Intent on Expanding Its Toy Brands, Is Playing All the Angles.

The days of interesting television shows with good story plots are fast disappearing because many of today’s shows are a composite of toys and programming about those toys.

Concerned parents and other adults may want to consider additional limits on  television and carefully evaluate whether the end result of a toy or game purchase is simply more television watching.

Continue reading “Kids’ Television Shows as Advertising” →