Businesses have now realised that in this day and age, children have their own purchasing power and are able to influence their parents and guide them to the items which they want. Another important factor which has been recognised is that today’s kids are the adult consumers of the future and marketing targeted at children aims to retain their faithful spending for years to come.
Due to smaller families, dual incomes and couples putting off having kids until later in life, parents have more disposable income and are willing to spend more on their children. Today’s parents, and their spending habits, are also driven by their feelings of guilt. Some parents spend a large amount of their time away from their kids and hope to compensate with material gifts and presents.
Children have now got more decision-making power in the home and are generally quite vocal about what they want. Kids have the amazing ability to pester their parents and nag them to buy things which might not have otherwise been on their shopping list. Sometimes parents give in to nagging just to keep the kid happy, but there are more cases of parents wanting to know if this is something important to their child or just a passing whim. If a child is persistent enough, it shows that this is something they need or will use more than once and then get bored.
Marketing has now become ‘all-ages’ focused and those in charge of marketing to children have found themselves trying to understand the children they hope to entice to their product. This has been accomplished by hiring psychologists and researchers to provide valuable insight into the mind and inner workings of children.
Marketing targeted at children is now in the business of planting seeds of brand recognition. Children are in an important stage of their lives and manage to retain vast amounts of information; recognising brands is an easy task for them. Through this, brand loyalty is established. Children as young as two years old have shown signs of brand loyalty: preferring one brand over another.
Children have also become quite savvy at using computers and are often allowed unmonitored access to the internet. Marketers have found easy ways of gaining personal information from children and marketing directly to a specific child using their information.
Marketing targeted at children is good for companies, if you manage to accomplish this without ruining your reputation, but it can also be harmful. Parents should be on the lookout for these potentially dangerous situations.