Consuming Kids

Consuming Kids is an in-depth look at how children are manipulated and exploited, every moment of every day, to become the best consumers possible.

With more than 52 million kids under 12 in the USA, American businesses have an unprecedented and enormous new demographic to target. Today, businesses have their eye on kids because they spend more than $40 billion dollars a year on clothes, electronics, movies, toys, snack foods, etc. However, marketing executives are also focused on the adult spending that kids directly influence – an estimated $700 billion a year.

Deemed their ‘purchasing power’ and ‘purchasing influence’, advertisers are focused on targeting an enormous range of products towards kids. Surprisingly enough, children have an influence on the holidays taken, cell phones purchased, computers bought, restaurant picks and even the decision of what family car to purchase. Marketing companies have studied the ‘Nagging Factor” to determine how many times children need to nag, or how many temper tantrums they need to have, and at what velocity, to ensure parents give in to a purchase demand. “Kids have a lot of power in the economy and advertisers know it and they are going after the kids in a way that is unprecedented,” explains Susan Linn. “This generation of children is being marketed to as never before."They are being marketed to through product placement, viral marketing, brand licensing, marketing in schools, television shows, DVDs, the internet, cellphones, there are so many more ways to market to children that there is a brand in front of a child every moment of every day. Whether it is a cereal, fast food meal tie-ins, bedsheets, lunch boxes, t-shirts and sneakers, children are subjected to brand bombardment and manipulation every waking moment of their young lives.