On Weighty Matters, I caught a glimpse of the above video and I’m quite happy to present it to you today. (Subscribers, it’s a short flick but it’s very worth the click. Didn’t mean to rhyme, but it was quite on time. Okay, I’ll stop now.)
Whenever we talk about marketers, their reach out to children and “advertisers,” the phrase “parental responsibility” always comes up…. and don’t get me wrong – I get it. That’s another reason why I appreciate this video – it mentions ways that marketers reach our children without actually doing so in a blatant fashion. Brand placement in kids movies? “Thank you, Pepsi?!” Dude. Just… no.
It’s not about “stop letting your kids watch too much TV” if your ads are plastered in the windows of the grocery stores near a child’s school bus stop. It’s not about “be a parent and stop putting your child in front of a TV every day” if when you take your child out, the cartoon is painted on the slide at the playground. It’s not about my inability to parent if buying soft drinks and carrying around that god-awful plastic bottle has become a status symbol among the students at school. They don’t even like Mountain Dew, but they’ll buy it and carry it around just to let you know they’ve got money to blow… and you don’t, with your poor self.
Suing the NYC Department of Health? Seriously? I wonder if the industry’s displeasure with the law has anything to do with why the USDA prevented NYC from going forward with it.
To someone who is constantly aware of the fact that they used to be a food addict – me – who used to binge on some of these foods… seeing them target the kids is a little nauseating.
So sayeth the video… we’re not buying it.
Are there any other ways marketers reach children that we haven’t mentioned here? Do you think this is excessive? What do you think?