Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
What do you mean?
From the beginning, I didn't want to get into a debate about the ethics of what these folks are doing. I just wanted to find out what was going on, and assess how marketing affects kids. But there was a lot of spontaneous articulation of guilt and ambivalence -- I even had one kids researcher tell me she was going to "burn in hell"! Perhaps it's because I was in the outsider role. It was almost like I was a priest and these marketers were confessing to me! People were pointing fingers at other firms; marketers were all saying there's a lot of stuff going on that shouldn't be. But of course, everybody was implicating everyone else.
My sense is that there's just a growing sentiment within the field that things have gone too far. That view has been confirmed by a survey that was done by the Kid Power Conference in 2004. This survey of nearly 900 people in the field of marketing to kids showed that marketers felt that there was too much advertising to kids, and they felt that there was unethical behavior going on. We have a field saying it's unfair to market to kids until they're almost teenagers, and yet they're doing it.
But aren't marketers parents too? Did they talk to you about how they deal with marketing when it comes to their own kids?
Sure, some of them have kids. But many of them are young, and many of them end up leaving the field as they age and have kids. The people who have been there longer and have kids tend to be better at reconciling their personal lives with their jobs. They may have more faith in what they're doing, or they simply may be more tied to it in terms of financial reasons. In addition, there are a lot of men in the upper ranks of the kids marketing industry. Women may have more conflicts around kids; the men I met were able to compartmentalize better.
Was there a watershed moment in terms of kids and advertising?
Well, 2002 was an important year; it was the year that junk food marketing and obesity among children really became an issue. It started with food, because the junk food issue is not just a kid's issue. We also have an adult obesity issue. With books and movies like "Fast Food Nation" and "Super Size Me," fast food companies are coming under attack. The synergy of the adult and children's issues are propelling the children's agenda; since 2002, the momentum for a serious look at children's marketing has been growing.
Where does the Bush administration stand on kids and advertising?
The Bush administration has been very active in trying to derail effective change in dealing with the obesity crisis. They have tried to deflect attention from the connection between food consumption and obesity. The Bush administration gets huge sums of money from tobacco companies, cola companies, packaged food companies, and so far they've been quite effective in forestalling any meaningful action.
Basically what this administration is about is advancing and protecting the interests of corporations which are doing significant harm to kids.
Is America different from other countries in this regard? Are all capitalist societies heading in this direction?
It's hard to say. On the one hand, there has been an aggressive marketing push by food and tobacco companies in other countries, and consumption is soaring. They're developing many of the same problems we have in this country. On the other hand, you have countries like Sweden who ban advertising to children under 12, and you hear a much more serious discussion in the European Union about protecting children from marketing.
How do you protect your own kids from the effects of consumer culture?
When my children were very young, our family lived in a small town in the Netherlands for two years. I was so struck by how different childhood is there; the kids seemed fairly untouched by the marketing juggernaut, especially compared to the U.S. That was very striking to me, and it really set the tone for an attempt to do things differently with my own kids.
My son was brought up without TV, so we didn't have that experience of having him watch a commercial and ask us for the product. I suppose the most vivid anecdote about the early impact of consumer culture on our kids was this: We were sitting at the dinner table one day when our son began reenacting the script of the TV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." But he'd never even seen the program! He'd just picked up so much of it from school. This was a very powerful example of how, even if you restrict many things in your own home, your kids will still get exposed to advertising and marketing through secondhand transmission. Your own child doesn't have to have seen the commercial to be exposed to the product; he just needs to know another kid that was.
Do you ever worry that after years of being denied the pleasures of television, your kids will rebel and become media junkies?
I'm not going to deny that the "forbidden fruit syndrome" exists. But I think people overestimate that problem. Part of it has to do with how you institute a kind of alternative lifestyle, how you restrict consumer culture. If you just do it by saying no -- well, the stuff's all around them, resisting is going to be a tough experience for the child. But if you provide a rich environment for your kids, they're not going to feel deprived. Marketers have been very successful in tapping into imagination and creativity. They understand the importance of that to children. Some of the people who design environments for kids don't. Think about schools, for example: Too much about schooling is about enforcing curriculum and rote memorization. Of course kids are going to rebel against that. I think the idea of the forbidden fruit syndrome scares parents from restricting media in their kid's lives. Either way, your kids are going to end up highly involved in consumer culture, so you may as well try to control it.
Have parents made any significant impact on the industry yet?
There's been more legislative activity going on: bills being introduced, hearings taking place. Soft-drink vending machine sales have been banned or restricted in some districts and states. They haven't had any national victories yet but there have been small pieces of legislation passed at local levels.
I don't think many parents realize how much has changed since they were kids, and when they do, they're not too happy about it. There is a lot of sentiment in this country to protect kids -- we just need to get organized.
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