Appealing To Our Children, Teens And Tweens

Children, Teens, and Tweens are more vulnerable today because of the lack of supervision due to the popularity of advance advertisings such as Television, Internet, and Radio. This has been done through the use of cartoons, commercials and advertisements which have made it easier to promote new and improved products that are readily available.

With the growing advancement of technology today marketers have used cartoons from yesterdays Mickey Mouse to today's Sponge Bob. By doing this they have been able to go from Mickey Mouse ears to catching the eye of children with the many items available through products like Sponge Bob. In doing so they have been able to not only use the cartoons of yesteryears and today but advertisement have gone to a whole new level.

Through generations of time it has become apparent that children are the best way to sell products. Even as parents we all know children want what they can see. It is for that reason that marketers have placed items at eye level for the children to see and the parents to buy. Parents today are less able to filter messages that the advertisement world is trying to send out to our children. Because of the fast paced, and busy schedules that our families have today these messages have gone from cartoons to video games which our children have become more susceptible to through the power of advertising. A version of the infomercial aimed at children is the television show whose main characters are modeled after toys. By 1988 64% of television toy advertisements were for toys related to children's television programs. Often cartoon characters would be launched as movies, be followed up by television series and then be merchandised on hundreds of products from t-shirts to toys (Marketing to Children p.4).

Reference Page

Sharon Beder 1998 Marketing to Children: Retrieved April 23, 2007 from http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/children.html