Marketing and Society

As we saw in the documentary “Consuming Kids,” today’s children have grown up in an extremely commercialized world. They are constantly being advertised to. It hasn’t always been this way. Up until about the mid 1980s, it was illegal to market to children. Now however, marketing campaigns target children. One of the main reason they target kids is that they have an incredible influence over what their parents choose to buy- and the child marketers want to exploit this. Marketers also see kids as potential customers for life, and they want to get them early in order to make as much profit off of them as possible.

When marketers began marketing to children, many people became worried. People didn’t like that the industry was taking advantage of kids. Children take in so much information that people call them “sponges.” And people were right to be worried. Marketing to kids has changed our society. Kids want more things. They want more money. They think that happiness comes through consumer goods. Girls are trying to grow up faster and are trying to look like the girls and dolls that they see on the commercials. It has also changed the nature of products marketed to families. Products are almost exclusively marketed to kids. Even commercials for mini vans tend to be directed at children.

Marketers have a very powerful position in society- and not just with kids- throughout all age groups. Marketers have the power to make you want something, to make you want to look a certain way, to make you want a certain lifestyle. It’s the same process as with marketing to children. We worry a lot about kids being marketed to, but maybe we should worry about ourselves too. We tend to think that we are old enough to know that it’s just a marketing campaign and that we shouldn’t let if affect us. But maybe we should be a little more cautious about this approach. Maybe adults are just as bad as children when it comes to getting caught up in the marketing campaigns? Many women have body image issues- issues, which are surely made worse by the models they use in their marketing campaigns these days. If marketing to children had such a powerful affect on society that says a lot about the influence that marketing has over our society.

Luckily, adults are more equipped to deal with these advertisements than children are. Advertisements surround us everyday and for the most part we’re able to ignore them. And it’s also reassuring to see that the natures of some of the campaigns are changing. As far as the body image issues go, companies like Dove are doing their best to battles these problems. They’ve created a campaign based on the idea that everyone is beautiful, and they ask real women to star in their commercials. 

While marketing is an important part of any business, the industry must realize what an influential role it has over society, and act responsibly in that position.