In 2000, Naomi Klein published No Logo, her book on brands, marketing and sweatshop labour. In it, she explored the activities of global sportswear company Nike and its use of 'cool hunters'. These are designers who scour the streets for the edgiest kids in order to identify forward trends, co-opt them, then sell them back to the kids and on to the mainstream. These 'fashion forward' kids were most often poor, young, African American men.
The 'cool hunters' also gave Nike merchandise to those at the cutting edge, knowing that they'd make the brand edgier, infuse it with meaning and increase its market value. In selling the 'swoosh' to mainstream America, Nike sold an image of the lifestyles of these kids as edgy and cool. But the reality for those living it every day was the edge of poverty. They were overwhelmingly forgotten and failed by the system.
Not long after No Logo was published, I interviewed the author and asked her if she saw it as a problem that Nike had integrated itself into the lives of these kids. Klein's reply still resonates today: the problem wasn't that 'cool hunters' were interested in poor African American kids. The problem was that nobody else was.
Every year, marketers and 'cool hunters' spend vast amounts listening to what kids want, not because they care about kids, but because every year the global 'tween' market (children aged six to 13) spends around $328 billion of their own money, and influence another $2 trillion of parental spending.
Marketers know that even toddlers develop brand loyalties, and that winning them over early means 'owning' them for life. They call it 'cradle-to-grave' marketing.
As a result, children are faced with more ads than ever. Advertisers reach them wherever they go, through radio, sports sponsorships, packaging and in-store displays; through supermarket checkouts, flyers, outdoor ads and licensed characters. They use celebrity endorsements, premiums and fundraising, product placement, stealth and viral marketing, magazines, newspapers and the internet.
On average, kids see tens of thousands of ads each year. And that's just on TV.
To reach our kids, marketers employ child psychologists, childhood development theory and medical technologies like fMRI to measure the brain's response to marketing. They follow them as they shop, infuse products with familiar scents and snoop through their bedrooms. Some go online to pose as kids and spruik their brands, while others recruit children to sell to unwitting peers under the guise of friendship.
This is a problem on so many levels. Through a concept called 'Kids Are Getting Older Younger', marketers sell children developmentally inappropriate products: highly sexualised clothing, heavily gender-stereotyped media, toys linked to violent movies they're too young to watch, junk food, luxury brands and toys with limited potential for play — especially the open-ended, imaginative play kids need to become creative, happy adults.
Marketers also utilise 'pester power' to pitch kids against parents, knowing that only the most determined among us can withstand the kind of pressure they encourage.
But the most fundamental problem is this: people have the right to know when we're being sold to. Our ability to resist commercial persuasion requires an awareness of the advertisers' intention to persuade. And while marketers claim that kids are more 'ad-savvy' than ever, children under eight years old are not cognitively equipped to understand an advertiser's persuasive intent: they take ads as helpful, truthful and independent information. It takes a while for kids to understand that advertisers present selective, biased information and leave us to figure out the rest.
Advertising influences our kids. It shapes their perceptions of gender and sexuality, their body image, food preferences, snacking behaviour and brand loyalties. So how can they learn to make independent consumer decisions when their preferences are manipulated well before they can think critically about what's going on?
What's the solution when families are more fragmented and under pressure, and governments are less inclined to regulate the activities of marketers and media outlets?
There are some things parents can do to help our kids: we can limit their exposure to commercial media. We can show them how to question media messages by becoming more media literate ourselves. Together, we can raise awareness of advertisers and manufacturers who target kids in ways that aren't okay, and tell them to back off.
At a recent seminar on children and sexualised media, Alastair Nicholson, former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia made recommendations to afford our children protection from this kind of commercial exploitation. These included the proposal that Australia incorporate principles of the United Nations' 'Convention on the Rights of the Child' into domestic law.
It's a start, but so much more needs to be done. Our kids need space to figure out who they are and what they value without these ideas being manipulated for profit. Our kids have the right to live in a culture where their innermost thoughts, feelings and vulnerabilities aren't scoped out and sold off to the highest bidder.
Like the 'cool hunters' in No Logo, marketing, brands and advertising push themselves into our children's lives to occupy voids once filled by community, government and family networks. Marketers like these aren't interested in hearing what kids really need. But it's time we made them sit up and listen.
Tania Andrusiak is co-author of Adproofing your kids: Raising critical thinkers in a media-saturated world.