1. Brand New Children: How Kids Become Consumers Lambrick Park Pre-School and Daycare, May 4, 2015

2. The story of “Kidpower” The Kidpower conference is the largest conference relating to marketing to children, tweens and teens in North America Kidpower is organized by a global conference hosting consortium known as the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC) IQPC also happens to organize the following other annual conferences among the 2000 they host annually on six continents:  ArmorCon: The Military Armor Conference  Military Flight Training  The Call Center Summit  Biometrics for National Security and Law Enforcement  Electronic Warfare We can evaluate the ethical complexity of marketing to children by the company it keeps

3. The distance we intend to cover tonight We’re using two quoted passages that follow this slide to define the “distance” we travel tonight The first is a standard academic definition of consumer culture The second is a statement on advertising and children made by the association that represents the major private broadcasters in Canada, e.g., Global, CTV, which is called the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) We are trying here tonight to make sense of how parents and their children inhabit and negotiate a consumer culture in which they are offered the rather thin support – which takes the form of self-regulation by advertisers – indicated in the CAB’s statement

4. Definition of consumer culture Consumer culture is “a social arrangement by which meaningful ways of life and the resources upon which they depend” take place in and through the market. Source: Allison Pugh. Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children and Consumer Culture, p. 230

5. Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ statement on advertising to children “Advertising that is directed to children must not exploit their credulity, lack of experience, or their sense of loyalty, and must not present information or illustrations that might result in their physical, emotional or moral harm.” Advertising to Children in Canada: A Reference Guide (May 2006), p. 8 (link here)here

6. 1. Our children’s problems with consumer culture start from our inability as adults to understand and manage our own relationship to consumer culture.

7. What is our conventional critique of consumer culture? Ads are manipulative and consumer culture encourages us to be materialistic Ads increasingly saturate our media and our public places, and are thus difficult to avoid We consume too much, and this is bad for our pocketbooks, our planet, and our values Consumerism is a moral failure on the part of individuals, as we give into impulse and instant gratification I, as an individual, am too are aware of ads and how they work to be sold to

8. An alternative view of consumer culture While there is some truth in these common-sense assumptions about consumer culture, they are an obstacle to a more productive analysis that has the following features:  Consumer culture is expansive and co-opting, as it re-encodes much of life’s meaning and many of the things we do and the relationships we have, and obliges us to experience them all in commodity form (as “commodity fetishism”)  Consumerism is not the reward for hard work; it is itself a form of unremunerated “work,” as we watch ads, research purchases, buy things, learn to use them, and junk them after they are no longer useful  Consumption is made compulsory and compulsive in an economy that must compel people to work long hours and dispose of its vast surpluses through our purchases, converting them into profit  Consumer culture is a highly organized system defined by status, fantasy, irrationality, and anti-social values, and one where advertisers benefit by a century of research into consumer psychology  Our consumption is driven by “upscale emulation,” where we compete with the Kardashians’, not the Jones’ next door, and aspire to identify with a standard of living very far above our means

9. Use of children in ads intended for parents

10. What does our misunderstanding of consumer culture mean for our children? We model bad consumer habits for our children (e.g., workaholism, shopping addiction, debt, compensating children with purchases when we feel guilty as parents) and create an environment at home hospitable to consumerism We fail to recognize that the relationship children today have to consumer culture is different than what we had as children ourselves growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, e.g., our children’s experience of the complete integration of advertising and digital media The places where children have historically found cognitive freedom and emotional resilience, such as in play and in relationships with other children, are increasingly occupied by consumerism and thus reduce the child’s capacity to resist Parents are being deliberately bypassed by advertisers so that the makers of toys, clothes, food and other goods for kids can speak directly to them, and in that assume a kind of parental role in our absence

11. 2. The central achievement of consumer culture is the transformation of the child into a consumer.

13. The Child as Consumer and its Consequences Advertisers seek to develop brand loyalty among people at an early age, as our brand preferences tends to be fixed early and thus we become life-long users of a given product But a far more significant achievement is the work of socializing the child as a lifelong consumer, possibly setting up negative patterns that last into their adult years Children at 0-5 are absorbing experiences that define the neurological foundations of their adult lives, as captured in language acquisition, sensory stimulus, and emotional support from parents and family The increased presence of consumer culture in children’s lives correlates with the following unwelcome results in their development:  Obesity (e.g., fast food and candy ads)  Mental illness (e.g., depression, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, self-criticism)  Selfishness and competition with other children for branded goods, and disdain for those without such goods (e.g., “brand bullies” in schoolyard and socio- economic class bias)

14. Some statistics on children and consumer culture Toddlers can recognize logos at the age of 18 months By age 2, children can ask for goods by brand name By age 3.5, children associate brands with personal qualities, e.g., adventure, fun, friendship, etc. By grade 1, children know 200 brands 30% of parents ask their children for advice on car purchases The average child views 40,000 ads per year The average child makes 3000 requests for products and services per year Source: Juliet Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture

15. The gatekeeper style in early ads relating to children’s products Consumer goods intended for children are not new, and have been sold for centuries Toys, for example, have been sold as status symbols for children since the 1870s Advertising to children is a more recent invention, and dates to the origins of modern advertising in the late 19 th century In the late 19 th and early 20 th century, the advertiser addressed the parent as the “gatekeeper” to the child in consumer culture That is, parents were invited to judge the merits of a toy, clothes or food, and to discuss with a child whether they might want it Parental authority was thus respected, and the lives of children were largely free of advertising messages and consumer culture This “gatekeeper” role wasn’t just about parents grumpily standing between children and their desire for stuff, but about parents preserving them from messages that stood to interfere with their development and their happiness

16. Gatekeeper-style ads from 1905 and 1920s

17. After the “gatekeeper”: the “Home alone” style in ads today Consumer culture enters into children’s foundational 0-5 age period in the form of adult strangers in ads and marketing campaigns who directly address children about their values, their aspirations, and their identities Adult strangers do this in the form of cartoon characters, voice-overs, scripted dialogue given to child actors, or as visibly present adults in the ads themselves, as well as in brand-extension, cross-promotion and product design We have become so accustomed to consumer culture’s relationship with children that the uncomfortable nature and scope of this adult influence on our children can escape our attention Thus one of the central imperatives of parenthood – to create an environment, impart values to our kids, and offer role models to them – is increasingly the purview of manufacturers of children’s products and the larger consumer culture Advertisers take advantage of the otherwise positive trend from authoritarian parenting styles of the past to more child-centred parenting philosophies today Advertisers do this by appealing to the choice-making power of kids, inviting them to express their autonomy and “attitude” by making consumer purchases, e.g., Bratz dolls

18. The new alliance between advertisers and young children In the 19 th century, women were invited into an alliance with advertisers so as to influence their husbands’ purchases This was hugely resented by many men, who framed this alliance on sexist terms as evidence of the lack of self-control and the emotional nature of women In the late 20 th and early 21 st century, the terms of this alliance have shifted so that advertisers and children now ally against parents We capture this alliance’s form of leverage in the form of “pester power” or the “nag factor,” as children use their influence and product knowledge to motivate parents toward particular brands Children have a degree of purchasing power on their own, e.g., allowances, gifts from relatives But they are far more valuable insofar as they influence their parents’ purchases, and are thus transformed into agents of advertisers Children are thus weirdly made into a major channel or conduit for advertisers into purchasing decisions that involve adult goods, e.g., vehicles, not products intended for children

19. Barbie and her Porsche See Toyota Highlander ad for example of “pester power”ad

20. 3. Screens disrupt the cognitive and social development of the 0-5 child.

21. Early Childhood Development and Digital Media (i) Infants and Toddlers (birth to 2 years) We begin this section with what for many is the starting point for talking about 0-2 year olds and digital media: “Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2. A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens.” American Academy of Pediatrics This statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics is now a fixture in the media and children’s development literature, and underlines the gravity of the issue with exceptional clarity The Canadian Paediatric Society has echoed this statement in their guidelines (see link) and addressed both 0-2 and 2-4 year olds as follows:guidelines  Children 0- 2 years: Screen time is not recommended  Children 2–4 years: Limit screen time to less than 1 hour/day; less is better

22. Examples of screen media built for the 0-5 age group Baby’s First Smartphone (Vtech)SmartphoneBabyFirstTV networknetwork Pocoyo online communitycommunity (Pocoyo for children ages 3-6) The VinciThe Vinci: a tablet for 0-4 year olds

23. An infant’s and toddler’s neurological health depends on parental presence and connection Attentive and immersive parent-child connection is the neurological equivalent of a mother’s milk to the 0-2 age brain That is, it contains almost everything the infant and toddler need to establish their neurological foundations for ages 3-5 and after Infants and toddlers are able to determine a parent’s emotional and psychological presence or absence via vocal tone and facial expression, e.g., of our slack expression when interacting with a screen The infant and toddler’s brain development is remarkable: the child’s brain is 70% the size of an adult brain at 1, 85% at age 2 “Your interactions with your baby are the classroom of their early childhood.” Catherine Steiner-Adair, The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age What happens within and what does the baby learn from the parent-child connection in the 0-2 age range?  That the baby exists and matters, that he or she is in the world at the existential level  The baby’s neurology, notably the higher-order thinking and language-learning sectors of the brain, are fully engaged  The child, on evolutionary terms, is equipped to respond to and grow optimally within embodied interaction with the parent(s)

24. What does mediated interaction do to the 0-2 age brain? Mediated interaction through technology, as contrasted with embodied interaction between parent and child, affects the child’s brain differently and in ways not conducive to their development Children as young as 1 can follow the parent’s gaze to a smartphone, tablet or other device, since the parent’s attention is vital to the child’s survival, and our focus of attention thus becomes theirs Digital media thus can assume an outsized importance to the infant or toddler because of this triangulation effect, insofar as the digital device is believed to have priority within their field of awareness relative to the child It’s in the nature of screen activity to make exclusive demands on our attention, and to get lost in a task, e.g., Internet “surfing” and how time passes without our awareness of it That “exclusivity” compels both us, as we are then removed emotionally and psychologically from the child, and the child him or herself from us as he or she engages with screens Time spent on a keypad or interacting with digital media brings about a different and inferior routing of a child’s neurological connections than happens in embodied interaction with a parent

25. (ii) Young children aged 3-5 (the “magic years”) The years between 3 and 5 are called the “magic years” These are not just “magic” because the parent-child connection is so powerful or the children adorable They are magic because children at this age have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imagined Hence the monster under the bed is just as real as the barking dog in the neighbour’s yard Childhood at this stage is thus “enchanted” Because the child has difficulty distinguishing images from reality, he or she is especially vulnerable to TV and digital media imagery that might be frightening or violent, e.g., villains in movies and cartoons The quality of the relationships that children have at this stage, both within the family and amid peers (playdate friends, fellow pre-schoolers), is more important than the educational content of what they receive

26. Emotional development in the 3-5 year age range These are years of indelible sweetness, joy and delight in children’s spontaneity, rapid learning, and imaginativeness These are also the years – following the terrible 2’s -- of tantrums, impulsiveness, and lack of emotional self-regulation, e.g., of my nephew Jameson at bedtime What do parents want developmentally from the 3-5 year old?  To feel and identify their emotions--to develop their emotional literacy  To develop social awareness—kindness, empathy, politeness  To learn relationship skills—sharing, taking turns, allowing other children to enjoy attention without jealousy  To develop decision-making skills and patience—to learn to cope with disappointment and emotional pain

27. The problematic solution offered by screen media Television and digital media appears to offer the parent a number of solutions to the parent of the 3-5 year old dealing with the child’s emotional volatility That is, television and digital media distract, soothe, reward (or punish, if we withdraw them) and pacify Television and digital media offer the “quick fix” to the emotionally upset child, but disrupt their ability to learn how to self-manage The role of ads and consumer culture here is that they become reliable ways of making the emotional satisfactions of media objective and real to the child, and thus make this false or temporary solution appear concrete and gratifying, e.g., child gets toy or candy advertised in show

28. 4. Consumer culture changes children’s play into branded “playworlds.”

29. It’s in play that children explore the world, take on adult roles, test their limits, learn to cooperate with others, and liberate their imaginations In the early 20 th century, play was interpreted by children’s advocates as a carefree place where children could develop themselves emotionally and intellectually For example: playing “house,” tag, and “kick the can,” pick-up games of hockey and baseball (or when I was a kid, lawn darts with my grandparents!) This is known as “pure play,” and it’s characterized as play that is socially spontaneous, participatory, and creative “Pure Play”

30. “Commodified play” Later in the 20 th century, play becomes commodified, and the imaginative activity of children becomes a branch of industry Such “commodified play” is managed, purchased, passive, and integrated within marketing strategies and consumer culture The commodification of play is advanced with greatest sophistication in “playworlds,” which immersive environments featuring multiple characters and storylines on a variety of media platforms, e.g., Transformers, My Little Pony In these playworlds, children are subject to progressively greater control as the parameters of play are defined by marketing strategies, where every toy or character is a gateway to deeper involvement with a playworld and its merchandise Children find themselves at the receiving end of complex technological systems driven by market forces, sensational advertising, and the attrition of the human benefits play once conferred The natural curiosity of children is redirected into a curiosity about consumer products, and the role that play has in encouraging their healthy development is trespassed upon

31. “Branded Playworld” example: My Little Pony “Equestria” AdAd (2015) featuring Equestria “Happy Meal” McDonalds cross-promotion tie- in

32. 5. Media expose the world of adults to children, and the world of children to adults, and invites the importation of teen rebellion and adult sexual projection into childhood.

33. The “Total Disclosure” Function of Media Television and the Internet have been called (by media scholar Neil Postman) “total disclosure” media, in that they reveal the adult world to children before young children are ready for it We define demographic categories in terms of the knowledge each holds: blue collar versus white collar, women versus men, children and adult Moving between categories normally involves rites of passage and periods of formal transition, e.g., post-secondary education before starting a career, an engagement before getting married By revealing the adult world to children who access adult prime-time programming on TV or surf the Internet, children learn of and imitate the forms of adulthood Children do this without really understanding adulthood’s context or meaning and without the benefits of a transitional period Children are not just exposed to sex and violence in adult programs, but to the weaknesses and foibles of adults at a time when they are simultaneously dependent on adults and need to trust in adult authority This “disclosure” works in both directions, in that children see the adult world before they are ready to understand it, and adults can see children inappropriately as “adults” The most dangerous consequence of this “total disclosure” between children and adults is the sexualization of children What is sexualization?  “… sexualization is not the same as sexuality or sex…. [S]exualization has to do with treating other people (and sometimes oneself) as objects of sexual desire… as things rather than as people with legitimate sexual feelings of their own.” (Jean Kilborne, So Sexy, So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Children, p. 4)

34. Sexualization and its Consequences for the Child in Consumer Culture Normal sexual development allows children to grow slowly into their gendered roles, and to have positive and emotionally rich experiences and education about sex However, sexualization through media and culture interferes with healthy development, and has the potential to create pathological sexual behaviours by conferring sexual attributes upon children years before they are ready to express their sexuality The sexualization of children encourages adults to see children as sexually available mini-adults and as objects for adult pleasure, e.g. of ads for adult products featuring sexualized children, and encourages children to likewise dress and act as if older than they are The problem with sex as it is manifested in media and popular culture is not so much a moral problem -- though it is morally shocking -- as it is far more about the fabrication of an artificial consumable sexuality that is closely tied to consumerism Think for example of the products sold to children that sexualize them or the TV shows that reflect a premature sexuality e.g., Bratz Baybz, the former La Senza Girl line of clothes for pre-teen girls, Little Miss Naughty underwear sold in Britain to children as young as seven, or reality shows like “Toddlers and Tiaras” Sexualization confers a kind of instant adulthood on children, conflating sexuality and consumerism in a way that tells children that by buying certain products, they can “grow up” fast and consume their way to adulthood overnight The new demographic category – a product of marketing – called the “tween” (age 1 to Grade 12) compresses normal development of children by shortening the gap between childhood and young adulthood, thus making sexualization of children easier

35. Bratz Baybz ad (recommended age for toy ages 4-7) and sexualized presentation of the dolls in this adad Sexualization as addressed to young children  “The problem is not that sex as portrayed in the media is sinful, but that it is synthetic and cynical. The exploitation of our children’s sexuality is in many ways designed to promote consumerism, not just in childhood but throughout their lives.” (p. 5) Jean Kilborne, So Sexy, So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Children, p. 5 Example of sexualization of children in a toy (Bratz Baybz) intended for 4-7 year olds

36. The sexualization of young children as addressed to adults Part of a photo spread in the French edition of Vogue magazine, January 2011 (the model is 11 years old) Vogue

37. Practical things you can do with and for your children 1.Model a better relationship with consumer culture and the material world as adults. Be an example to your kids. Highly materialistic kids often have highly materialistic parents. 2.Ensure that schools and playspaces are ad-free. Give children a significant space in their lives free of ads. 3.When you go shopping with your kids, turn it into a teachable moment. Educate yourself in consumer and media literacy, and show your children what they’re missing. 4.Limit screen time at home. Screens are the advertisers’ primary conduit to your children. If at all possible, get children outside. When inside, discuss ads and branded TV programming for children with them. 5.Encourage the use of toys and games that are not part of branded play worlds.

39. Books on consumer culture and children Juliet Schor. Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. Sharon Beder. This Little Kiddy Went to Market: The Corporate Capture of Childhood. Stephen Kline. Out of the Garden: Toys, Television, and Children’s Culture. Neil Postman. The Disappearance of Childhood. Elizabeth Chin. Purchasing Power: Black Kids and America Consumer Culture. David Buckingham. The Material Child: Growing up in Consumer Culture. Ellen Seiter. Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture.

40. More books on consumer culture and children Jean Kilbourne. So Sexy, So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids. Susan Linn. Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood. Susan Gregory Thomas. Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds. Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn. Consumer Kids: How Big Business is Grooming Our Children for Profit. Alison Pugh. Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children and Consumer Culture. Benjamin Barber. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. And a 2008 video: Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood (Media Education Foundation). A portion of this is available as a YouTube preview.preview