Marketing to Kids

There’s an interesting article over on eMarketer right now about the ethics of marketing online to kids. If you market to children or if you have children who go online, I think it’s a good read.

Any parent knows how much kids like to get new stuff. They’re a marketer’s dream in many ways, except that they have to get a grownup to do the buying for them in most cases. Kids are very easily taken in by marketing pitches.

I have only to look at my daughter to see how easily kids fall for a pitch. There’s so much STUFF she wants, only because she saw an ad for it on television.

Both as a parent and as a marketer, I can appreciate the rules marketers are encouraged to follow in marketing to children. They’re good rules to go by. I don’t have any sites that are specifically for kids (yet), but it’s an area I’ve considered.

The basic idea of these rules is to discourage deceptive marketing practices aimed at children. Children firmly believe in what their imaginations tell them in many cases, and don’t always distinguish between reality and fantasy. It’s cute to watch as a parent, but can also be troublesome when kids don’t understand about advertising.

What can you do as a parent? The first thing is to help your children understand when advertising isn’t exactly realistic. Talk to them about how ads can make things that aren’t real look real.

If you do market to kids, try to keep things honest. There’s that line between going for the sale honestly and deceptively. Keep it age appropriate.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with marketing to kids, but many people go about it the wrong way, giving the industry a bad name.

[tags]advertising to kids,marketing to kids,family,marketing ethics, CARU[/tags]