- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Ads aimed at kids are virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at slumber parties and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Companies are enlisting children as guerrilla marketers, targeting their friends and families. Even trusted social institutions such as the Girl Scouts are teaming up with marketers. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, New York Times bestselling author and leading cultural and economic authority Juliet Schor examines how a marketing effort of vast size, scope, and effectiveness has created "commercialized children."Schor, author of The Overworked American and The Overspent American, looks at the broad implications of this strategy. Sophisticated advertising strategies convince kids that products are necessary to their social survival. Ads affect not just what they want to buy, but who they think they are and how they feel about themselves. Based on long-term analysis, Schor reverses the conventional notion of causality: it's not just that problem kids become overly involved in the values of consumerism; it's that kids who are overly involved in the values of consumerism become problem kids. In this revelatory and crucial book, Schor also provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children.Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Tables and Figures
- Dedication
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The Changing World of Children’s Consumption
- 3. From Tony the Tiger to Slime Time Live: The Content of Commercial Messages
- 4. The Virus Unleashed: Ads Infiltrate Everyday Life
- 5. Captive Audiences: The Commercialization of Public Schools
- 6. Dissecting the Child Consumer: The New Intrusive Research
- 7. Habit Formation: Selling Kids on Junk Food, Drugs, and Violence
- 8. How Consumer Culture Undermines Children’s Well-Being
- 9. Empowered or Seduced? The Debate About Advertising and Marketing to Kids
- 10. Decommercializing Childhood: Beyond Big Bird, Bratz Dolls, and the Back Street Boys
- Afterword
- About the Author
- Reading Group Guide
- Appendix A: Data Appendix
- Appendix B: Organizations
- Appendix C: Commercial Alert’s Parents’ Bill of Rights
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Copyright