Fighting For Our Kids' Souls: Parental Concerns About Marketing Mania

Presented by

Eric Brown, Communications Director – Center for a New American Dream

The Center for a New American Dream is a Maryland-based non-profit organization that helps Americans change the way they consume to improve quality of life, protect the environment and promote social justice.

In addition to its other work to promote responsible consuming, the Center early on identified excessive advertising and marketing to children as having the potential to create an entire generation of what we have come to call “hyperconsumers.” The pitfalls of a highly commercialized youth culture seemed obvious – young people were being taught to find their identity in material possessions. It was equally clear that the long term environmental impact of these consuming patterns could be catastrophic.

It may seem amazing today, but in 1999, when we conducted our Kids and Commercialism campaign, which included a survey of parents, there was very little negative press around the problem of runaway advertising and marketing to kids. In fact, our nascent campaign to help parents deal with the problem was met with skepticism by several media experts we consulted. Parents, we were told, didn’t think aggressive kids’ marketing campaigns were a problem, and neither would the public at large.

In the end, our research showed an extremely high level of concern among parents that their children’s values, worldview and their very self worth were shaped by advertising, marketing and material possessions. The study helped us craft an extremely successful resource, “Tips for Parenting in a Commercial Culture,” which has been distributed to over 20,000 parents and is in its third printing.

Here are some highlights of our research:

A Generation of “Hyper-Consumers”

·         Almost four out of five parents think that marketing puts pressure on kids to buy things that are too expensive or bad for them.

·         70% of parents say that marketing to kids is bad for their kids’ values and world view.

·         Almost two thirds of parents say that their own children define their self worth in terms of possessions, and that the problem has worsened over time.

·         Almost half of all parents admit that their kids would rather go to a shopping mall than go hiking in the woods for a family outing.

Advertisements, Marketing and the “Nag Factor”

·         More than half of all parents admitted to buying a product for their child that they disapproved of because the child wanted the product in order to fit in with their friends.

·         Almost a third of all parents report that they are actually working longer hours to pay for things their kids feel they need 

“Cradle to Grave” Marketing Works

·         Almost half of all parents report that their kids are already asking for brand name products by age 5.

·        More than 1 out of 5 parents say that their kids began asking for brand name products by age 3.