Consuming Kids The Commercialization of Childhood 2008 RENT / BUY TO SUPPORT MORE GREAT WORK

>> Not since the end of World War II,

at the height of the baby boom,

have there been so many kids in our midst.

There are now more than 52 million kids
under 12 and all in the United States.

The biggest burst in the US youth
population in half a century.

For American business, these kids have
come to represent the ultimate price,

an unprecedented, powerful,

and elusive new demographic to be
cut up and captured at all costs.

There's no doubt that
marketers have their sights on

kids because of their
increasing buying power.

The amount of money they
now spend on everything

from clothes to music to electronics,

totaling some $40 billion every year.

But perhaps a bigger reason
for marketers interests

in kids may be the amount
of adults spending that

American kids under 12
now directly influence

an astronomical $700 billion a year,

roughly the equivalent of
the combined economies of

the world's 115 poorest countries.

>> One economic impact of children is
the money that they themselves spend,

the money that they get from
their parents or grandparents,

the money that they get as allowance,

when they get older, the money
that they earn themselves.

That is an increasingly
significant amount of money.

But that's not where the real money is.

Marketers and advertisers
have realized that

the real money related to

the children's market is in
their purchasing influence.

>> Any questions? Jared.

>> Does it do any tricks?

>> Does that works for you?

>> Because of their purchasing power and

because of their purchasing influence,

marketers and advertisers
have become much more

deliberate in their strategies and attempts
to try to influence those dollars.

>> Sienna, because kids come first.

>> It's the children who often
determine what car gets bought,

what computer gets bought,

what cell phone program,

and even where they take family holidays.

>> What's your favorite
part of the Nick Hotel?

>> The awesome pools

>> Having my own room.

>> The archaic rocks.

>> I like the shops.

>> I like getting with SpongeBob.

>> They came on vacation and the
kids don't ever want to leave.

>> Most parents and other
people just don't realize

how corporate marketers
intentionally try to,

in essence, make parents
absolutely miserable.

Corporate marketers have actually studied

the whole nagging phenomenon
and which corporations do

nagging better and they
provide advice to corporations

about what tantrums work better.

>> Children sometimes say,

can I, can I, can I as much as nine times.

>> Will you take us to Mount Splashmore?

>> No.

>> Will you take us to Mount Splashmore?

>> No.

>> Will you take us to Mount Splashmore?

>> No.

>> Part of the next factor
is designed to help

maximize the number of times children
will keep asking and keep asking.

>> No.

>> Will you take us to Mount Splashmore?

>> No.

>> Will you take us to Mount Splashmore.

>> No. If I take you,

will you two shut up and quit bugging me?

>> Yeah.

>> Of course. Well, will you
take us to Mount Splashmore?

>> Yes.

>> Thanks, dad.

>> These kids have a lot
of power on the economy.

The advertisers know it,

and they are going after them
in a way that is unprecedented.

>> This generation of children
is marketed to as never before.

Being marketed to through brand
licensing, through product placement,

marketing and schools,

through stealth marketing,
through viral marketing.

There's DVDs, there's video games,

there's the Internet, there are iPods,

there are cell phones.

But there are so many more
ways of reaching children so

that there's a brand in front of a
child's face every moment of every day.

>> What we have is the rise of
360 degree immersive marketing

where they try and get around the
child at every aspect of every avenue.

>> Kids are inundated with this,

they are buried in this,

buried in this media blitz.

>> Kids are now multitasking with media.

>> Hello.

>> Hey girl, what's up?

>> No way.

>> Plug in your iPod or MP3 player.

>> They're using more than
one medium at the same time.

They're surfing the web and the
television is going with MTV,

and they've got the iPod with
one ear bud and they are

more vulnerable and are bombarded with

over 3,000 commercial messages every day.

>> Marketers know these
are a little sponges.

They're so wide open and they want to get

that brand loyalty for life
because that's big bucks.

>> It's about people wanting to convince

our children that life is about buying,

life is about getting.

>> Can I help you?

>> Yeah. I'm here to see this.

>> Go ahead.

>> The philosophy becomes cradle-to-grave.

Let's get to them early,

let's get to them often,

let's get to them at many
places as we can get them.

>> Do you have a business card?

>> Sure.

>> Not just to sell them
products and services,

but to turn them into life-long consumers.

>> I'm saying about 20 years.

>> Though grownups represent

the greater part of any
communities purchasing power,

children very definitely are

an influence in the purchasing
of everyday commodities.

>> Children have participated for

a very long time in the
consumer marketplace.

But in the past, children's consumer
culture was a cheap little culture.

>> Every afternoon the kids make a
beeline for the Seminole 5 and 10,

I'm terribly mismanaged candy store.

It should be called the Seminole 1 and 2

because that's the way Alice and
Frank Smith make their living.

A penny at a time.

>> Well, it's penny candy
because kids only had pennies.

>> Kids, this is a toy you've got have.

>> Look at the fun Debbie
and Andy are having with

these realistic ride-em toys.

>> Although it's true
there was advertising to

children back in the 1950s, the 1960s,

even in the '70's,

the amount of it was very
confined in comparison to today.

>> You want to get a plane key.

>> Advertising to kids may have
been confined during the '70's,

but it was during this period that it
become into its own as an industry.

>> Triggering a counter movement to end

youth marketing altogether and setting in

motion a series of

policy decisions that would ultimately
determine the industry's future.

>> A seminal event was
in the late '70s when

the Federal Trade Commission advocated

a ban on advertising to
children eight and under.

>> The Federal Trade
Commission staff believes that

children are deceived by
television advertising,

particularly commercials
for cereal with sugar in it

and it wants to stop all advertising
aimed at young children.

>> This ban was based in part on concern
about sugar cereals and cavities,

and also based on research that
indicated that children eight

and under did not understand the
persuasive intent of advertising.

>> Are you saying that every message
directed to the older child,

a child between eight and
12, is inherently deceptive?

>> That's right. I think
the child cannot bring

enough information to
bear not to be deceived,

and to have an unfair trade practice.

>> What ended up happening was the
industries that were going to be affected,

the toy industries, the sugar
cereal companies, went to Congress.

>> In American democratic capitalistic
society, we all must learn,

top to bottom, to care for ourselves and

the last thing we need next
20 years is a national nanny.

>> Congress ended up taking away a lot of

the FTC's authority to regulate
marketing to children.

>> Far from addressing

consumer advocates concerns about
the impact of advertising on kids,

in 1980, Congress passed
the FTC Improvement Act.

The law mandated that the
FTC would no longer have

any authority to promulgate any rules
regarding children's advertising.

>> The Congress of the United States,

under pressure from advertisers
and marketers, actually robbed,

took away from the Federal
Trade Commission the right,

the authority to regulate advertising
and marketing to children.

>> What little remained of

government's power to regulate
children's advertising

would be dealt a final fatal
blow in the early 1980s.

>> Government is not the
solution to our problem.

Government is the problem.

>> In the 1980s,

this country was in a situation of
falling in love with the market,

thinking that the market
was the solution to

everything and of deregulating industry.

>> For those of you with television
stations I have an announcement.

You know I've never liked

a big government and I think you
would agree there's no reason to

substitute the judgment of

Washington bureaucrats for that
of professional broadcasters.

>> By 1984,

the Reagan administration had completely
deregulated children's television.

All bets were now off.

>> Corporations now realized that
Congress was not going to do

anything to restrict their power to

marketing to children and they
now actually had more power.

>> Low and behold, a lot
of really smart marketers

discovered children as a huge market.

>> In the decades prior to deregulation,

kids consumer spending increased at

a modest rate of roughly
four percent a year.

Since deregulation, it's
grown a remarkable 35 percent

every year from $4.2 billion
in 1984 to $40 billion today,

an 852 percent increase.

>> Deregulation really opened the
floodgates for a kind of marketing to

children that never existed
before the mid 1980s.

>> The master of the universe.

>> Suddenly it became okay to

create a television program for
the sole purpose of selling a toy.

>> No one can stop the
spike studied armor of

the mighty spiker, not even me [inaudible]

>> Sure enough, in the year immediately
following the congressional action,

the 10 best-selling toys were all
based on kids television shows.

It was the beginning of a new
era for childhood marketing.

>> A few years after deregulation,

when the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtle movie came out,

there were over 1,000
products linked to the movie.

There was also the TV show
children were seeing every day

and there was the comic book that slightly
older children started to look at.

It was a saturation of the
whole childhood culture.

>> When I was a kid,

Hopalong Cassidy was on television.

He was one of the first
children's programming.

It was only after he became so successful
that they developed a lunchbox.

Now they developed a lunchbox
and the dolls before.

>> The Star Wars ultimate lightsaber.

>> This is why people
like George Lucas said,

"I am not a film director.

I am a toy maker."

>> Everything's Star Wars.

>> [inaudible] is recording
ringtones for a cell phone company.

Star Wars, the marketing force,

has married its name to a pile of

products including masks,
dolls, lightsabers,

hats, snacks, cups, more snacks,

wind-up toys, action figures,

cereal, and even a bestselling book.

>> With deregulation, a new world
had been opened to marketers,

free now to turn

the most powerful emotional attachments
of kids into unheard-of profits.

>> Their goal is to insinuate

their brands into the
fabric of children's lives.

>> So many children's characters
principal function is

really to hook kids on products.

They're designed to
point kids heartstrings.

>> It's your chance to make the
little mermaid part of your world.

>> Then who is holding the strings?

Well, it's the marketers who want to
sell kid's a wide variety of products.

>> You end up having junk food
promotions at fast food restaurants,

breakfast cereals with images of the
main characters from the movies.

You have bed sheets so the children
literally go to bed thinking about

the images and then they go to school with

their backpacks and their
lunch boxes with the logos,

and then they get to school
and their friends have on

the t-shirts and the
shoes and they want them.

>> I want Scooby-Doo crackers.

>> Scooby-Doo? Do you like those?

>> Yeah.

>> Have you ever had them?

>> No.

>> How do you know you like them?

>> I love them so much.

>> SpongeBob SquarePants was crafts
best-selling macaroni and cheese.

I personally know a five-year-old who

told her father in no uncertain terms that

SpongeBob SquarePants
macaroni and cheese tastes

better than any other macaroni and cheese.

Now, how do you argue with a

five-year-old about that?
I mean, what do you say?

You say well, no, it doesn't and
then she says, well, it does.

No, really. No,

it does. I know it does.

Well, have you ever had SpongeBob
SquarePants macaroni cheese?

No, but I know that it tastes better.

>> Growing up is a very
strenuous, difficult,

and sometimes hard and
scary process for children.

One of the things that gives them
some stability and continuity

in that is their attachment to
touchstones in their lives.

Among those touchstones are characters,

Clifford the Big Red Dog, Mickey Mouse.

These are constants in their lives.

These are things that
they have figured out,

they feel they understand and that they

feel comfortable with and
indeed in their own way, love.

When you take that and you leverage
that into saying, eat this food,

you are basically leveraging that very
powerful emotion that the child has,

that very powerful
attachment, to make money.

>> To celebrate Walt Disney Pictures and

Walden Media's presentation of

the Chronicles of Narnia,
the Lion, the Witch,

and the Wardrobe, you can get
a pop-up storybook and an

out of his world action figure
and every McDonald's Happy Meal.

>> But marketers have not
limited themselves to dropping

the names of beloved characters
to sell their products.

With increasing braziness,

they have also begun to drop the products

themselves directly into
kids entertainment.

>> Just product placement. Hey.

>> Who cares? What's helping
convenience at such low prices?

>> Water, Fresca,

Mountain Dew, your product name here.

>> Product placement
is weaving of products

into programming without
adequate disclosure.

>> Welcome to Wendy's. Can
I take your order, please?

>> What kind of toys they have?

>> And so it's dishonest advertising,

it's deceptive advertising,

it sneaks by children's
critical faculties and it

plants it's messages and kids brains
when they're paying less attention.

>> American Idol, which is

a top-rated television program
for two to 11-year-olds,

is just rife with Coca-Cola
product placement.

American Idol is brought
to you by Coca-Cola,

The Gilmore Girls, ate
Pop-Tarts for breakfast.

>> Are you enjoying your breakfast?

>> I don't know if I like Pop-Tarts.

>> Did you fall on your
head while you're sleeping?

>> I don't know. Do I like this?

Is this something I like?

>> A children's films have
product placement in them.

With Spy Kids had
McDonald's as a plot point.

Also product placement is getting more
and more prevalent in video games.

>> When ads haven't been serving
as a backdrop in video games,

they have become the video game.

>> With children now as likely to be
on the internet as in the playground,

they're exposed to so much advertising,

they learn to ignore it.

That's why advertisers
love internet games.

Not just ads, not just
games, they're advergames.

If she can score with skittles,

race with Chips Ahoy,

or hang out with SpongeBob.

>> It's part of this by
any means necessary.

We've got to get to the kid.

We've got to make sure that that child has

indoctrinated as a consumer
cadet so therefore,

we got to get to them in ways that

maybe they don't even know
that we're getting to them.

>> This new world of advertising in

entertainment and entertainment
as advertising no

longer seems to recognize any boundaries

especially with the rise
of new media technologies.

>> Children with cell phones have become

a prime target for
marketers selling products.

It's because one in four American kids

between the ages of eight
and 12 has a cell phone,

that's five million children,

and that number is expected to
double in the next three years.

>> Cell phones make children much
more vulnerable to advertising.

It's advertising literally
right in the face of a child.

>> I can get all kinds of themes,

ringtones, and lots of cool games
like Pirates of the Caribbean.

>> Disney and Nickelodeon now have
downloadable content for cell phones.

>> Watch videos, catch cast interviews,

interact with a favorite wildcat.

>> Companies are using text
messaging in order to reach kids.

I mean, if your child has a cell phone and

that cell phone has Internet access,

then your kids being marketed to,

you know, in ways that
you don't even know.

We have to stop thinking of marketing
to children as just commercials.

Commercials are just so 20th century.

>> Introducing Nick Tropolis,

a huge new world just waiting
to be explored by you.

>> With more than 40 million
kids online, daily and growing,

perhaps no tool has become more important
to marketers than the Internet.

Advertisers are making sure to
hit kids where they gather,

or tens of millions of dollars

elementary age kids are
coming together to chat,

play games, and watch videos,

all while being immersed in the brand.

>> Welcome to Webkinz.

>> At Webkinz, for example,

millions of kids a day
chat with each other,

explore, and shop in a virtual world.

A world open only to those who
go to a designated store and buy

a $15 stuffed animal imprinted with

a secret code that allows kids to
join and enter the Webkinz world,

where they are encouraged
to shop some more.

One of the reasons marketers
covet these sites is because of

their proven ability to gather
personal information from kids.

>> The Internet allows
people to be micro targeted.

If you have the person's birthday,

you could say happy birthday, Billy,

have you seen the new Power Ranger watch?

It's very personal.

>> If you set up five
different accounts from

five different geographic
areas on different genders,

on different ages with
different preferences,

you will see five different ads,

you'll see five different worlds.

Now, as a child,

you don t know that, as a child,

you're competing with MBAs,

you're competing with some of
the smartest people out there.

>> In the face of it these developments,

many critics of youth marketing
have called on schools to develop

media literacy curriculum to help
kids navigate commercial culture.

The results have sometimes
been less than encouraging.

>> Now a word from our sponsor.

That's how some schools
are making extra money

literally selling
themselves to advertisers.

>> Everything from the band shell.

>> That'll be $125,000.

>> To the lecture hall,.

>> $150,000.

>> Can be named for a price
at New Berlin Schools.

>> There's advertising on school walls,

on school buses and gymnasiums.

There's donated scoreboards.

They have the Coca-Cola
or Pepsi logo on them.

>> There are so many ways that commercialism
has intruded into our classrooms.

Coke and Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes
in the schools which are helping to

generate an epidemic of childhood obesity
among our kids across the country.

There's school book covers,

there are sponsored educational materials,

there's a company called
Field Trip Factory,

which takes kids to
places like Petco and to

Sports Authority and calls that education.

>> The Chicago kindergartners
are on a school field trip

but the animals they are going
to see aren't in the zoo.

>> We want to welcome you to Petco.

>> Across the country,

a growing number of schools are taking

America's classrooms to America's malls.

>> There's a new company called Bus Radio,

which is trying to compel
a million kids to listen

to eight minutes of advertisements
per hour as they ride the school bus.

>> Busradio.com, we'll choose a name
at random and if you are the winner,

we'll give a pair of tickets
to your bus driver too.

You guys can hang out together,

maybe here a large coke.

Email us as soon as you get home.

>> There's Channel 1 which compels

about seven million children to watch
ads in schools each school day.

>> Today on Channel 1.

>> The purpose of schools in part is
to promote reason and the purpose

of advertising is to subvert reason to

promote the sale of a product
and for that reason alone,

advertising has no proper
place in the schools.

>> How often does a company
realize that they're going to get

a captive audience where people
literally have to watch their message.

The effort to create junior consumers
no longer stops at the school door,

it is now following kids into school.

>> But if it's been
following kids into schools,

it's also been coming out of our schools

in the form of advanced academic research,

producing a new class of
child marketing experts

armed with some of the most
formidable scientific tools.

>> Psychologists and anthropologists and

sociologists and behavioral
scientists are used

by marketers to really shape and
cement children's brand preferences.

They want to be part of the
fabric of children's lives.

>> Twelve years ago, there were
no youth conferences where you

looked at more effective
ways to market to kids.

Now, there are probably 15 a year
different conferences on tweens,

teenagers, the Latino community,

how to reach youth with your product,

your program, your
packages, your characters,

your advertising campaign, how
to reach them more effectively,

how to get more of their dollars,

which is marketing, and you
can't blame people for that.

But is it balanced with
more conversations,

more discussions of what's good for kids?

How can we move our society
forward in a healthier way? No.

>> Child psychologists and other
psychologists are now absolutely integrated

within the marketing field

and there's techniques are
so widespread that in fact,

it's probably pretty hard
to come up with parts of

the marketing effort that don't have
anything to do with psychology.

>> You're a psychologist. You do research,

you know the difference between a
three-year-old and a five-year-old,

and you know how to reach a
three-year-old and you know that you

have to play the ad much more slowly

and use round figures instead of

angles because children like
round figures at that age.

You know that five-year-olds
have a whole different set of

concerns so we can fine

tune the marketing to communicate
better with children.

>> One means of fine tuning is the tried
and true method of the focus group.

>> It's quiet, it's controlled.

There's usually a one-way mirror
so we can see behavioral cues.

It's how they look, it's
looking in their eyes,

especially with kids who don't have
that sense yet of self-monitoring.

All their actions are very
descriptive and once we take what

they say and then feed that in with

how they look when they say
and their behavioral cues,

we really end up with a strong
measurement of how product affects them.

>> Still another means is
ethnographic research,

which tuned to the goals of marketers,

has become a kind of scientific stocking.

>> They go into supermarkets with them and

film exactly how they look at a product,

pick it up, put it back down,

the way they move around the supermarket.

They film them on the playground.

They film them in school.

They film them eating breakfast.

They film them going into their
closet and deciding what to wear.

>> What are the things that
you need that aren't in here?

>> I need a lot of them.

>> They film them talking
to their friends.

They organize little friendship
circles and film what they're doing.

They even follow them into the bathroom.

I interviewed a number of people who

sat and watched children
take baths and showers,

watched how they interact with

shampoo and soap and health and beauty
products as that category is called.

In order to go back and write a report for

their clients on what to
do with the packaging.

It's creepy.

It's just absolutely creepy
the way children are

being dissected and put under
the microscope by markers.

>> This is new consumer science and it's
yielding a new science of childhood,

and perhaps nowhere else have the
different elements of this science merge

so seamlessly as in the
Girls Intelligence Agency.

>> Not the CIA,

it's the Girls Intelligence Agency,

which for all the cloak and dagger,

is actually a marketing firm.

>> The Girls Intelligence
Agency claims to have tens,

if not hundreds of
thousands of girls across

the country that it is in
contact with and working with.

The signature product of

the GIA is something called
the Slumber Party in a Box.

>> Guys, sacred opening of the case.

>> Kids are asked to push a
certain product or they're more

like focus group parties
where kids are asked to

come and give their opinions on products.

>> What is the hottest item,

the sleep mask, the fuzzy
phone, or the beauty kits?

>> Fuzzy phone.

>> They ask them to be sly.

They ask them to get
information on their friends

without their friends knowing about it.

It's teaching children to exploit

their friends for the purpose of
getting money or free products.

>> What happened at your
home the other day,

marketing or was it a party?

>> Is both. It was a party for us,

but it was marketing for the company.

>> Is that cool with you?

>> Definitely.

>> One of the more problematic aspects
of its behavior is that it will

enlist young children in

its marketing efforts without
their parents knowing about it.

>> There's a lot that's happening
around us and the public is not aware,

just like they're not
aware of neuromarketing.

That's another whole scary thing to
put a child in an MRI and then watch

what is lighting up inside his brain
based on the stimulus and then saying,

"Wow, this works,

this is good and look what happens."

>> They do blink tests
on kids, for example.

They develop ads and then see

how frequently a kid blinks
or turns their eyes away.

When they see the kid blinking more,

they change the ad to
make it more mesmerizing.

It's stuff they just can't take their
eyes off and it's not an accident.

They've gone over and over and over with

extensive high-tech testing devices to

find the precise
configuration of characters,

colors, music, words, and so
forth that kids can't resist.

>> They want to spend time
understanding child development,

understanding the child's need to belong,

a child's need for community,

a child's need for independence
to encourage children to buy.

>> Somebody asked me,
Lucy, is that ethical?

You're essentially
manipulating these children.

Well, is it ethical? I don't know.

But our role at initiative is to
move products and if we know,

you move products with

a certain creative execution placed in

a certain type of media vehicle,
then we've done our job.

They are tomorrow's consumer,

they're tomorrow's adult consumers,

so start talking with them now.

Build that relationship when they're
younger and you've got them as an adult.

>> I said, these marketers are
very similar to pedophiles.

They are child experts.

If you're going to be a
pedophile or child marketer,

you have to know about children and
what children are going to want.

>> Kids love advertising.

It's a gift.

It's something they want.

There's something to be said by the
way about being there first and about

branding children and
owning them in that way.

An anti-social behavior in pursuit
of a product is a good thing.

>> You'll never get away
with this [inaudible] Sam.

>> Companies have moved away from
exaggerating the product characteristics.

>> Seeing his legs actually
move just like a real horse,

[inaudible] is the [inaudible]
strongest horse mate.

>> To a whole new form of advertising,

which is symbolic advertising.

The product is pushed not on the basis
of what it can do or how it tastes,

but of its social meaning.

Kids are taught to want
candy or sugar cereals,

or soda because it's cool.

It will define them as an individual.

What you buy is who you are.

>> There's a mantra in American society.

You are what you have,

you are what you buy,

you are what you own.

>> Where did she find that
outfit? Like uglier us?

>> More like uglier her.

We're so funny.

>> And pretty.

>> I love us.

>> The corollary of that is,

if you don't have it,

then you are less than.

You're a nobody.

You don't have self-esteem and
this happens even for children.

>> Nice jacket. [inaudible]?

>> Please, it's Dior.

>> Our mum bought it for [inaudible].

>> I think the thing that upsets
me the most is that it's not

just products that are being
marketed to children, but values.

The primary value that's being
sold to kids over and over and

over again is a value that things or
stuff or brands will make us happy.

>> The costs of participating in

the consumer culture for children
have escalated dramatically.

Fifteen years ago, my first Sony,

which would be a kid's
version of a tape recorder or

a music player would cost far
less than the adult version.

But today, it's an iPod
in grades 1, 2, 3, 4,

even very, very expensive product.

We're seeing elementary school girls,

6-7year-olds articulating
adamant preferences

for designer jeans that cost 100-$150.

That's part of that shift from
children's culture being a cheap culture

to a very upscale children's culture
in which it's not only branded,

but it's designer branded.

>> It's got to have it, give me.

That's the value system.

Self-indulgence, instant
gratification and materialism.

That's the basic consumer identity.

>> You could try thinking of things
that remind you of each note. Do.

>> That's easy. Do means money.

>> It's shallow. It's about me.

It's about me now,

and it's about me and these things.

>> Law is something you get
to break if you're rich.

>> That's the attitude.

It's all about me.

>> It's really a disservice to kids.

I think part of what we need to be able to

tell kids is that it's
fine to have nice things,

there's nothing wrong
with having nice things.

But don't mistake that for
happiness and satisfaction.

>> In about 20 years,
what do you want to be?

>> I want to a baseball player.

>> A teacher.

>> I want to be a policeman.

>> When I first started seeing children as

a psychotherapist about a
quarter of a century ago,

I would routinely ask them what they
wanted to be when they grow up,

and I would hear things like a nurse and

astronaut or some profession
that seemed glamorous to them.

>> By the way, what is your
father do for a living?

>> He designs.

>> Designs what?

>> Missiles?

>> Missiles. What are you going to do?

>> I'm going to be a postman.

>> Why do you want to be a postman?

>> It's sound so much to it and
you can read the postcards.

>> Around the late 80s,

it started to change and I started to hear

children answer that
question with the word rich.

When I grow up, I want to be rich,

I want to make a lot of money,

I want to have a lot of stuff.

>> How are we doing
today towards my style?

>> Bake in many ways.

>> [inaudible]

>> A little shaken.

>> The commercialization of
childhood is permeating their lives.

We're talking about a profound
remaking of their psyche.

>> In that world of materialism,

kids are not allowed to be kids anymore,

they have to grow up fast.

We see it in the way they're
being asked to dress,

the violence they're
being asked to navigate.

And what's getting
squeezed out as childhood.

>> Marketers even have
a name for this trend.

They call it kids getting older, younger.

>> Where's Carol?

>> Meet the go-to girl
of the fashion world.

>> The natural developmental urge is
to be older, more mature, faster.

No one who is 17 reads 17 Magazine.

It's the 10 and 12 and 13-year-olds who

are reading it to understand
what it's to be 17.

What is happening is that
marketing is taking advantage of

that natural urge and selling down
to lower and lower age groups.

>> Manicure and pedicure parties are a
big hit for five-year-old [inaudible].

>> Aren't these gorgeous?

>> Why wouldn't girls as young
as the age of six buy cosmetics.

Experts say their role
models are in teachers,

astronauts or doctors,

instead it's the teen idols
they're attracted to.

>> Nothing points to the
industry infatuation with

age compression more than
its invention of the tween.

>> Club Libby Lu caters to tween girls,

like Shelby celebrating her 10th
birthday with friends, and afterwards.

>> Look at this, this is so cute.

>> Showing mom what a tween girl wants.

>> It's like bling, bling.

>> That's just what a CEO wants.

>> There's a lot of little girls out

there and they have a lot of buying power.

>> Tween in-between what I don't know.

I don't know what's before tween,

because the bottom end of tween
is constantly getting younger.

Used to be, I believe 8-12,

and now it's 6-12 and it can get 4-12.

>> This gives you a clue to some of

the perverted thinking that's
going on in this field.

The idea that a six-year-old
is no longer a child,

but is between childhood and adolescence.

>> One of the crucial aspects
of this trend is that

marketers never communicate their
adult messages and values to kids,

simply as kids,

but as boys and as girls.

>> Girls are being taught,

they need to be pretty, sexy,

and what they buy determines their value,

and how they look determines their value.

>> It's true that to some extent,

advertisers have always appeal
to girls at this level.

But there can be little
doubt that something

radically different has emerged
over the past few years.

>> Girls are here.

>> Nice bling.

Hi, where my ring.

>> Sparkly.

>> You see now dolls with

highly sexualized outfits and
themes marketed to six-year-olds.

>> I go to visit preschools,

and I'll see four-year-old girls in what I

often call crouch skirts
modeled after Bratz Dolls.

>> That's so cute.

>> I would seriously wear that.

>> Thanks, blessed, be long.

>> While one part of
you cognitively may be

able to accept belly shirts
when you're seven years old.

Are you emotionally mature
enough to handle the outcome

when you go out in public
and people look at you

like an under age Britney Spears.

>> With boys, we see the same pattern.

While to some degree,
marketers have long targeted

boys with what would seem
to be adult messages,

messages that equate being a man with
aggression and toughness and violence.

Today's boys are immersed and
all together different world.

>> Aim, fire. exciting.

>> With boys, what we see is
the use of images of violence,

power, domination at very young ages.

>> With video games, for example,

we went from 16-bit to 32-bit,

to 64-bit to 128-bit technology
in about five years.

What that means is that we're getting
closer and closer to virtual reality.

>> The amount of entertainment violence

that young children are
exposed to is startling.

They're getting a message
that when you have conflicts,

you fight with violence,

that you have to fight in order
to resolve your differences.

That's what you do. That watching

violence is fun. It's entertaining.

>> The Federal Trade Commission
report that came out looking at

the marketing of media to
children showed that indeed,

the media industry was marketing material

to children that even their
own rating systems said,

we're too young for that material.

>> The studios confirm to Congress
today that children as young as

nine years old were tested for their
reactions to all rated violent movies.

>> Clearly, there were times during the
period discussed and the FTC report,

when we allowed competitive zeal to

overwhelm sound judgment
and appropriate standards.

>> The very people who are making

the product are telling you
what's appropriate for kids,

and there has been a
shift in this space of

a decade of one full ratings point.

What wasn't R-rated movie is now a PG13.

They don't use child development
experts in deciding this,

and the questions they ask are not,

is this okay for kids?

It is, would parents let kids
of a certain age watch this?

>> I still masturbate to pam.

>> Greg.

>> Look at those boobs, man.

I just want to lather up with soap.

>> One thing that happened when the movie
studios tightened up on living kids

into our movies was that the
sexual content, drug content,

alcohol, tobacco, profanity, adult
content migrated into the PG13 movies,

so there are a lot more like
what our movies used to be.

>> Hollywood movie that's
rated for older viewers,

PG13 R has a whole line

of toys and products marketed to children,

3, 4, and 5 years old.

>> Spiderman.

>> Despite growing concerns about

the industries explicit
strategy of age compression,

its drive to reach kids at younger and
younger ages has only accelerated.

The result is a massive and
growing toddler industry that

almost from the womb now
blankets babies in brands.

>> It's really hard to find

baby paraphernalia that's not
plastered with media characters.

You can find unbranded baby stuff,

but you can find it in
high-end toy stores.

But if you go to places where

poor middle-class families
shop, it's all branded.

The babies start out life with
the notion of consumption.

That's not an accident,

what they want is cradle
to grave brand loyalty.

That's what they talk about.

Share of mind,

they talk about owning children for life.

>> There's been this recognition
apparently that children

as young as six months of
age can recognize brands.

Now if they can recognize brands.

We've got to make sure that
they recognize our brand.

The marketer is interested in
getting to that child at the very,

very beginning to begin to
shape that child's worldview.

To begin to shape that
child's brand preferences.

To begin to basically
tell the child in a sense

what that child needs in order
to have a meaningful life.

That's where we say as mothers,

that's our job, it's not theirs.

>> Where to turn in such a world.

Millions of parents are now finding

some solace in what appears
to be a counter trend.

It's a new media movement that
claims to be good for infants.

Whether we're talking about

developmental DVDs like Baby
Einstein and Brainy Baby,

or 24 hour programming for
infants and toddlers on TV.

The idea is that good media,

is the best antidote to bad media.

>> We don't get to decide
how tall they'll end

up or what their shoe size
will be in two years.

But how big their imaginations get,

well, we do have some say in that.

>> The idea is that our kids would be
all right if parents would simply turn

their children away from

the commercial clutter and turn
them on to educational media.

>> Because kids don't just
grow up. They think up.

>> But the question is,
is any of this even true?

>> There is not one iota of research
evidence that shows that they teach

children anything or that the children

who experience these things at early ages,

are any different in terms of

their educational capacity or their fund
of knowledge later on down the line.

It is a huge hundreds of millions
of dollars a year business.

They're selling it to
parents' insecurities.

>> You'll never get into college
if you don't play your video game.

>> They're basically letting parents

think that if they don't get these things,

their children will be behind.

>> What will this home video end up
being labeled Kyle and Max in the car?

No, Kyle, and Max Playing.

>> Kyle we want tea.

>> Make that Kyle and Max increasing
the size of their brains.

>> The majority of parents
think if they don't

put their kids in front
of media early and often,

that they are going to
be behind other kids.

>> Even as this industry has been
making big educational claims,

it's been making even bigger profits.

Sales of infant videos and DVDs
purporting to be educational

are expected to reach
$7.8 billion by 2010.

>> After her daughter was born,

Julie-Aigner Clark searched for ways to

share her love of music
and art with their child.

She borrowed some equipment and began

filming children's videos in her basement.

The Baby Einstein company was born and in

just five years her business grew
to more than $20 million in sales.

Julie-Aigner Clark.

>> This is a billion-dollar industry
that is a complete and total scam.

There's no evidence that a baby
watching a DVD is learning anything.

>> Educational videos aimed at babies
may not be such a bright idea after all,

a new study found that children who watch

popular DVDs like Baby
Einstein and Brainy Baby,

actually have poorer vocabularies.

One researcher even said she'd rather
have babies watch American Idol.

>> The American Academy of
Pediatrics has now for seven years

recommended that there be

no screen media used for
children under the age of two.

This is for some very specific reasons.

First of all, there is no solid
scientific research evidence that

children under the age of 30 months or

two-and-a-half years can learn
anything from an electronic screen.

A lot of media early may,

in fact, change the way
the brain develops.

>> Three new studies out tonight
are the latest to suggest that

heavy television watching can
hurt children's ability to learn.

>> The more television
infants and toddlers watch,

the greater the chance they'll
have trouble paying attention

and concentrating during their
very early school years.

>> Researchers say hours spent in front of

the TV only trains the
brain to watch more TV.

A child weaned on bright colors and

rapidly changing images will find
it tough to focus on a teacher.

>> During the first two years of life,

their brain is rapidly developing.

What we know about optimal
brain development during

these first two critical years is

that face-to-face involvement
with other people,

parents, siblings, other kids,

interaction with other human beings,

manipulation of the physical environment,

trying to stack the blocks up
or get a Cheerio in your mouth.

Creative, open-ended
problem-solving play is far

better than the best edutainment
software you could ever have.

>> What's the most important
thing for a 0-2-year-old?

The single most important
thing is the social dynamic of

the bond that occurs and the intimacy
that occurs between mother and child.

Forget the rest, that piece
lays the bond of trust

and the foundation for all higher
learning later that has to occur.

If you're sacrificing the trust, the bond,

the attachment issues
for the sake of having

a Baby Einstein or computer
or videos in the room,

you're missing a huge understanding
of child development.

The space that is necessary to
think is being jeopardized.

You're immersed, you're outside
yourself, you're taken out.

When do you have quiet time and

unstructured time and when is a
child able to be a child and play.

>> Remember playing baseball
until it got so dark,

you couldn't see the ball any longer.

How about hiding and pretending you

couldn't hear your name
being called home to dinner.

That was back, of course,

when kids and just about
all kids played outside,

starting the moment they
got home from school.

That was before Xbox, of course.

>> A recent report from the American
Academy of Pediatrics found that

commercial media is radically
transforming the way children play.

The report found that even though

free and unstructured play is
essential to the cognitive,

physical, social, and emotional
well-being of children.

The amount of time 6-8
year-olds spend playing

creatively has been declining
dramatically over the past decade.

For 9-12-year-olds, over the same period,

creative play has declined
a staggering 94 percent.

>> The thing that it's
important to remember about

creative play is that it's
a foundation of learning.

It's a foundation of critical thinking.

It's a foundation of problem-solving.

It's the foundation of empathy and of
the experience of being something else.

It's the way that kids
make life meaningful.

What's happening is that
children are being deprived

increasingly of opportunities
to exercise their imagination.

Parents are being encouraged
to hand babies cellphones

because of the Sesame Street
content or the Nickelodeon content.

We now have screens in the back of

minivans and portable DVD
players for toddlers,

we're raising a generation of
children who are never going to

have the experience of
having to amuse themselves,

or having to calm themselves down.

They're always going to need a screen,

and that's exactly where the
marketing industry wants them.

>> When children play with toys
that are based on media products,

they play less creatively because they're

not spurred to make up their own world.

>> She's a fiesta girl.

>> They're not supposed to
make up their own story-lines.

What they do is they just
regurgitate what they've already

seen using products that are based
on the film or on television show.

>> Every web string and
trick Spider-Man can do.

Now, you can too,

with a Spider-Man transistor.

>> It's not real play.

Their own imagination and their
own past experience isn't evident.

It's really just an imitation
of what they've seen.

>> You can be just like Superman.

With a Superman Returns inflato-suit,

scrambled up punch and crush
gloves and you'll hear the sound

of every punch you throw
and everything you crush.

The world needs a hero are
you ready for the job?

Inflato-suit accessory
you put it together,

battery is not included, but the
punch and crush gloves separately.

>> The message kids get
is that they can't play

Harry Potter unless they have
an official Harry Potter wand.

Or they can't play some hero

unless they have all of the
paraphernalia that goes with it.

>> Straight from the movie comes
Jack Sparrow's gear battled

with the clash and flash sword
with lights and sound effects,

fire the electronic
pistol be Jack Sparrow.

>> In a way they're being told their
imagination isn't good enough.

It's not good enough to pick up
a stick and turn it into wand.

You have to have the real wand.

>> It's okay, the newest greatest robot
toy that does everything for you.

You don't have to play with it anymore.

It just plays by itself. You watch it.

Great, and at a cost,

I don't even put the
thing together anymore.

It's no model making,

no thinking, no coloring, no painting it.

It's just all ready for
me and ready to go.

>> The fundamental message
that I need something

outside of myself in
order to play is really

harmful and tragic because it starts
to take play out of children's hands.

The kids need more and more

in order to be able to play
and in order to be happy.

>> We're creating a future
generation of super consumers.

Rather than consuming less,

our children will consume even more than

the baby boom generation
or the generation Y or X.

What does that mean for our future,

for our well-being and
for their well-being?

>> Fourty times as many young
people are now being diagnosed

with bipolar disorder than 13 years ago.

>> Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder,

almost four-and-a-half million children in

this country have been
diagnosed with ADHD.

>> Doctors are writing a growing
number of prescriptions for

antidepressants for children as
many as eight million a year.

>> One in three children born in the
year 2000 will develop diabetes.

>> For the first time in decades,

the rate of hypertension
in children is rising.

>> This generation of children is
the heaviest in American history.

An estimated 16 percent of all
children and teenagers are overweight.

Four times as many since the 1960s.

>> It's like we're saying in our society,

we don't care about children.

For all the rhetoric about kids,

we're treating them as one thing,

buying power consumers and they know,

no matter what they buy,

we want them to buy, even
if it's going to kill them.

>> The sick child,

as viewer consumer has replaced
the healthy child of sports,

play and make believe.

>> People who are really smart,

who've done a lot of research on this
and beginning to say, wait a minute,

there seems to be some association here

between advertising and marketing
and all these problems.

>> I designed a study which looked

at children's involvement
in consumer culture,

and what I found was

the more media a child views both
television and other forms of media,

the more likely they are to score high on

the depression scale and an anxiety scale.

>> This is one of the very most

important public health
problems in the United States,

if not the most important public
health problem in the United States.

>> One of the most disturbing
of these negative health trends

is the rise of illness is
linked to childhood obesity.

The dark side of a kid's
consumer culture that promotes

junk food and sedentary media
use over physical exercise.

>> Life expectancy of kids today will
be shorter than that of their parents.

The first such decline in modern times.

>> Over the last two decades,

obesity rates have doubled in
children and tripled in teenagers.

>> One of the concerns that people have

with our current pandemic of obesity is

that we are teaching kids to eat the
wrong things earlier in, earlier.

>> The consequences of
America's weight problem

now extending to child safety seats.

A new report says many very young children

are too heavy for standard
car safety seats.

Manufacturers starting to make heftier
models to address the problem.

>> We are seeing problems
that we used to never see

until adulthood now in children
as young as six or seven,

such as Type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is a terrible disease
with lifelong implications.

You die young, you die miserable.

>> This is not diabetes
that is based on genetics.

This is diabetes based on weight.

Diabetes being a chronic
illness affects people's eyes,

it affects their circulation,

it affects their heart.

There is going to be a healthcare crisis,

a concrete healthcare crisis.

>> Despite these concerns,

regulators have not only been
reluctant to address the problem,

but even to acknowledge that there is one.

>> There are no simple
solutions to this problem.

Look, even our dogs and cats

are fat and it's not because they're
watching too much advertising.

>> So you're saying advertising has had

no impact on the increased
obesity problem?

>> I'm saying that if you look for a
correlation and causation, there is none.

>> There's no way we can
really make childhood

healthy in this country
without a government effort.

We've done it in other areas.

We do it in the area of child safety.

We have laws about
putting helmets on kids,

seat belt laws, tobacco marketing to kids.

But somehow we think it's okay to
make children fair game for marketers

who just want to profit from

them irrespective of the impacts
on their health and well-being.

>> Not once have I ever
heard a corporation say,

let's put on the chalkboard,

the pluses, the maybes,

the questionable impact,

and here's some negatives that could
come out of our product or program.

I've never seen it.

>> If I'm a producer and distributor,

I don't think it's fair
for me to say, well,

I don't care what the social
consequences of what I do are.

I'm just making a buck.

I mean, we wouldn't tolerate
that in a lot of other areas.

>> The marketing industry
spin is that it's all up to

parents and that parents should
be the sole gatekeepers.

>> What about the parents though?

>> Isn't it a parent's responsibility.

>> Isn't it the parents responsibility

to monitor what their kids
are reading and watching?

>> Isn't the choice of what to buy and
feed kids up to parents ultimately?

>> Parents can't cope with this alone.

They need help, and we have
a $15 billion industry that

is working day and night to
undermine parental authority.

>> Responsible adults would say.

But of course parents are responsible.

But if children are not
with their parents,

24 hours a day if they're in school,

and the school is full of
advertising and marketing.

If they go to daycare and

the daycare centers full of
advertising and marketing,

if someone's inviting them
over to a slumber party,

and there's a surreptitious selling
our market research going on there.

I think it's asking an awful lot of
parents to take all the responsibility.

It's akin to a owner of
a large fleet of trucks

announcing that our
fleet of trucks from now

on is going to be barreling down the road,

especially where children are at 150
miles an hour, parents watch out.

It's your job to take care that
your children don't get hurt.

No one would argue in
that case that the owner

of the fleet of trucks doesn't
bear any responsibility at all.

>> In fact, the FTC and

the FCC's role is to

protect children when the
marketplace isn't protecting them,

and we have a situation now
where those agencies are not

fulfilling the role that they
actually were given when airways,

for example were turned over
to private corporations.

So things are very out of balance.

>> We are the only
industrialized country in

the world that really doesn't
have a policy about this.

I have consulted and spoke
to people in Ireland,

in the Scandinavian countries.

They don't permit this
type of advertising.

But usually when there's any
type of debate about this,

the industry brings out the First
Amendment rights, the Constitution.

I say they're entitled
to the Constitution,

but they're also entitled to
the shame, shame on them.

This is our future and they
know that this is wrong.

>> We need in a proactive,

forward-looking way as a society to say,

how is this changing us?

How is this changing our environment?

How is this changing our society?

Do we want this?

>> I think that we have to look
at this as an issue of rights.

The rights of children to grow up
and the freedom for parents to

raise them without being undermined
by commercial interests.

In that sense, it's like

the civil rights movement or

the women's movement or the
environmental movement.

I think that we're at the
beginning of a growing movement,

and then it takes time.

>> This is a lot more than about
selling products and services.

If we care about nourishing
the human spirit,

if we care about human relationships
and we've got to care about this issue.