What’s next? Advertising in the womb?

This week we’ve been discussing marketing to children.  This is a topic that needs to be examined in great detail by marketers because so much is at stake when it comes to the healthy development of our kids.  I’m all in favor of strict guidelines for marketing to children even though I am a marketer.  It seems ludicrous to me to get on the bad side of parents.  But there were a number of sites that we discussed as a class that left me with strong concerns about the willingness of corporate America to sell to children in an appropriate and responsible manner.

I found a great deal of information from various grassroots groups and organizations when I Googled the subject of responsible marketing to children.  The solutions varied from calling for government intervention to corporate collaboration in the marketing to children.  One group, Parents for Ethical Marketing, has come up with three simple guidelines:

Ethical marketing targets only consumers who can perceive and understand the persuasive tactics in commercials.

Ethical marketing promotes products that are not harmful to children.

Ethical marketing supports strong families by respecting parental authority in the parent-child relationship.

Most of these” rules” seem reasonable but I find the first one debatable.  I’m forced to point out the lack of objectivity in determining who can perceive and understand persuasive tactics in commercials.  Does that mean we should ban advertising for certain age groups?  My grandmother was 97 years old when she left us this past summer and she wanted everything she saw on late-night infomercials.  Did that mean Gramom just liked to shop or did she just not realize the persuasive nature of advertising?   Also, I often wonder if we were born to consume or were we created to consume.  I have a difficult time trying to convince myself that simply seeing something like an iPhone on a commercial is somehow persuasive in nature.  I confess I don’t really pay attention to the voice over of those commercials because I’m entrance by what the iPhone can do that will make my life easier.  That said, are marketers really swaying kids to want their offering or do kids simply see something that looks interesting and want it?

So I decided to go exploring on Parents for Ethical Marketing’s blog.  This is where I found some comments that further explained their agenda.  There was one entry that stood out for me:

“Meanwhile, the new American Girl Store in our own Mall of America is hiring Doll Hair Salon Sylists…See, you take your $100 doll into the store and get its hair styled.

One of the newest “historical character” dolls from Mattel’s American Girl line is this one from way back in 1974. [Ahem.] The doll comes with this $18 old-fashioned accessory — a popular toy back then — a Barbie head with hair you could style. Yourself.”

OK, so I agree with them.  I can’t think of anything quite as wasteful and ridiculous as taking an over-priced doll to a hairstylist.  However, I think the organization is not simply for responsible marketing but also against consumerism.  In that case I have to ask myself, where does corporate responsibility end and parental responsibility begin?  It’s true that there is more and more marketing targeted toward kids in sometimes disturbing ways.  But in the end parents are the ones who control when and how their kids are exposed to corporate messages and, regardless of the power they assign to Madison Avenue, they do have ultimate control over what their kids are eating, drinking, wearing, and playing with.