David Marshall
The aim of Understanding Children as Consumers is to look at how we view children as consumers and to consider the extent to which they are actively engaged in the marketplace as the buyers, users and recipients of consumer goods. This edited collection draws on recent research and academic expertise within the area of consumer behaviour and childhood consumption. It looks at a range of age groups but is primarily focused on children aged 8 to 12 years old. As a number of commentators have noted, childhood is firmly embedded in the commercial marketplace (Langer, 1994, 2005; Cook, 2004) and a major challenge is to understand the ways in which young consumers negotiate this terrain.
In (re)thinking children as consumers we need to recognize the ubiquity of the marketplace in childrenâs everyday lives and consider the ways in which they experience this commercial world, be it through exposure to various forms of media, visiting retail stores, making requests for products, or purchasing goods with their own money. With direct and indirect marketing to children on the increase there is a question over how children engage with this commercial world. A number of discussions, for example, around food marketing and childhood obesity, online activity and sedentary lifestyles, or increased materialism among the young tend to place children as hapless victims subject to the onslaught of marketing activity. While we have often excluded children from debates about consumption, manufacturers and retailers have long recognized the role of children as consumers and acknowledged their contribution to family decision making (Kline, 1993; Cross, 1997; Cook, 2004).
With this growth in marketing to children some commentators have gone as far as claiming that children are suffering from âmarketing related diseasesâ and that we are witnessing the âhostile takeover of childhoodâ in a âtoxicâ commercial environment permeating all aspects of young lives (Schor, 2006, citing commercialalert.com; see also Linn, 2004; Palmer, 2007). Seen from this perspective, this once commercial-free arena of childhood is increasingly populated with attempts to âlureâ young consumers, and their parents, into ever more consumption, with a variety of devious tactics that include recruiting children to promote products in the playground and online through social networking sites, as well as by using a variety of promotional tactics that âplay on their dreams and exploit their vulnerabilitiesâ (Mayo and Nairn, 2009: xvii). Underpinning this moralizing is an assumption about children as âconsumersâ and a question over the extent to which they are either vulnerable and exploited in the commercial environment to which they are exposed or competent and savvied individuals. As Cook (2004: 7) notes, âThe dichotomous construction of the exploited child and the empowered child arises from a lingering tension between markets and moral sentiment: it is a tension which, at least since the beginning of industrialisation, continues to inform considerations of childhoodâ. Resolution of this tension, according to Cook, occurs where goods are considered beneficial and functional, as is the case with educational goods, or when children are seen as full persons who desire goods and can exhibit some degree of agency. Gunter and Furnham (1998: 7) argue that children resemble other (adult) consumers in many ways and exhibit a degree of sophistication and pragmatism in their approach to the marketplace to the extent that they are both âactive and discerningâ in their consumption. Similar views are expressed by David Buckingham (2000, 2008; Buckingham and Willett, 2006) in his accounts of children and media. One only needs to consider their knowledge about latest toys, or the hottest characters on collectible cards, the âbestâ sports players, or the coolest websites.
These issues form the basis of what this book is trying to do in looking critically at children1 as active consumers, but it differs from previous accounts by trying to address the key issues and uncover what being a consumer means to children themselves â namely, from their perspective!2 This attempt to give children some voice in the debate is sympathetic to the idea that they should have some say, that their opinions matter, and that they have some âagencyâ as consumers and âsocial beingsâ in their own right (James et al., 1998).3
Marketing to children
To put this idea of vulnerable or competent consumers into context let us consider where much of the discussion about children as consumers has been centred thus far â on marketing to children. One of the most influential writers in the field remains James McNeal. His books include Children as Consumers: Insights and Implications (1987) and The Kidâs Market Myths and Realities (1999) in which he offers interesting insights into young consumers. These, along with texts like Guber and Berryâs Marketing to and through Kids (1993), raised the profile of the childrenâs market and generated interest in the notion of children as consumers. Much of their focus was on how to market to children as opposed to what children are doing with marketing.
Later texts such as Acuffâs (1997) What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids, or Del Vecchioâs (1997) Creating Ever Cool: A Marketeerâs Guide to a Kidâs Heart attempted to unpack the key to successful marketing. Cross offers an historical account of childsâ play in Kidâs Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood (1997) and The Cute and the Cool: Wonderous Innocence and Modern American Childrenâs Culture (2004) where he looks at changes in the childrenâs market in the USA. Cookâs historical account of the commercialization of childrenâs fashion with The Commodification of Childhood: The Childrenâs Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer (2004) shows that the idea of marketing to young consumers is not some new phenomenon but part of a gradual process of integrating children into the marketplace. Gunter and Furnham provide an excellent psychological analysis of the young consumer entitled Children as Consumers (1998) in which they detail the nature of the childrenâs market and their role as consumers. McNealâs Kids as Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children (1992) and more recently On Becoming a Consumer: The Development of Consumer Behavior Patterns in Childhood (2007) look at how children develop as consumers. Ellen Seiterâs (1993) treatise on the childrenâs toy market, Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture, focuses on childrenâs creative use of consumer goods and media. David Buckingham in After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media (2000) looks at children and the media environment at the start of the century, a theme developed with Rebekah Willett in their (2006) edited text Digital Generations. In contrast to this academic approach, Martin Lindstrom and Patricia Seybold (2003) offer a practitionerâs perspective on global kids in Brand Child looking at contemporary market research with young consumers.
But as an interest in marketing to children grew so too did concerns over the way in which this was developing. Stephen Klineâs excellent history of marketing to children, Out of the Garden (1993), maps out a detailed historical trajectory of childrenâs play culture and the role of the mass media in building up the âchildrenâsâ market. His account ten years later of the development of new media in Digital Play (Kline et al., 2003) reveals the emerging relationship between technology, culture and marketing in the games and video industry. Susan Linnâs (2004) Consuming Kids and Juliet Schorâs (2004) Born to Buy both raised important questions over this increasingly commercialized world of childhood and the pervasive nature of marketing. More recently the UK National Consumer Councilâs (Nairn et al., 2007) study on materialism and marketing towards children concluded that children who spend more time in front of the television or computer tend to be more materialistic and have lower self-esteem, raising further concerns over the impact of marketing to younger consumers. Mayo and Nairnâs (2009) Consumer Kids: How Big Business is Grooming our Children for Profit leaves little doubt as to the sentiment of the text. They provide an insightful account of the latest marketing tactics and the impact on childrenâs wellbeing4 in an increasingly commercial world and also look at some of the positive ways in which children are responding to this consumer world.
A large part of the debate on marketing to children has focused on advertising, primarily in relation to mass media advertising and the ways in which children engage with television and, more recently, online advertising. Research from over thirty years ago showed that childrenâs ability to distinguish between persuasive advertising and television programmes was related to age (Robertson and Rossiter, 1974). While some would argue that children lack the life skills and experience to resist the persuasive nature of commercial advertising others claim that promotional messages provide information to allow for informed choice (Moore, 2004). Inherent in this debate is the idea that advertising to children is âunfairâ and one approach has been to look for a âmagic ageâ at which children can understand the persuasive intent of these commercial messages. While it has commonly been assumed that teenagers are less vulnerable to advertising, recent research suggests that they may be just as persuadable as younger children when it comes to digital marketing. The persuasion model relies on explicit mental processes and does not account for the formation of implicit attitudes when children encounter certain stimuli (Livingstone and Helsper, 2006; Nairn and Fine, 2008). Todayâs children are faced with a variety of new media where the distinctions between commercial and non-commercial material are increasingly blurred, for example, when advergames promote brands online (Moore and Rideout, 2007; Lee et al., 2009). For this generation, television advertising represents only one aspect of their consumption experience and more recent accounts have considered their engagement with a broader range of media including the internet (Livingstone and Helsper, 2004; Tufte et al., 2005; Schor, 2006; Ekström and Tufte, 2007; Livingstone, 2009).
As we ponder on the impact of advertising campaigns on children, few ask if younger children are actually interested in these ever more devious advertising campaigns or how they relate to them, and most importantly how they impact on their behaviour (Andersen, 2007). While most of the discussion around marketing to children has centred on exposure and the comprehension of commercial intent, we know much less about how children utilize that information and the impact on their behaviour (Lawlor and Prothero, 2002; Bartholomew and OâDonohoe, 2003). In a rapidly changing media environment we might also ask how children have learnt to deal with marketing as a consequence of this increased exposure to products and brands and try to understand that experience from their perspective.
Children and consumption
Over a twenty year period from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, young consumer spending in the USA increased from $2bn to $6bn and their influence extended to a staggering $132bn of household expenditure (McNeal, 1992). This trend was to continue through the 1980s in the United States with an increasingly affluent teenage market, despite numbers of teenagers declining by 15.5 per cent (Gunter and Furnham 1998: 2; see also Davis, 1990; McNeal, 1992). By the end of the 1990s it was estimated that children in the USA accounted for $23bn in direct spending, almost all of this discretionary, and influenced a further $188bn in family purchases (McNeal, 1999). Ten years on the childrenâs market (i.e. the annualized amount spent on child related goods and activities) is around $921bn5 in the United States. The corresponding value of the UK market is around ÂŁ117 bn.6
The most recent account of childrenâs direct purchasing power in the USA is around $51.8bn (Schor, 2006). It is difficult to get similar figures for the UK but the most recent British pocket money survey from the Halifax7 showed the following:
- Average pocket money in 2008 was ÂŁ6.13 per week, versus ÂŁ8.01 in 2007.
- Younger children aged between 8 and 11 years old got almost half the amount of their older counterparts (12 to 15 years old) receiving ÂŁ4.34.
- Pocket money was out of step with inflation â there was a shortfall of ÂŁ3.30 for 2008 s weekly allowance compared with three years beforehand.
- Whilst parents provided a weekly allowance they continued to pay for mobiles, iPods and gifts.
- Three in ten children saved some of their pocket money each week; however, if they wanted something in addition to their allowance they tended to ask for it as a âpresentâ (Halifax, 2008).
With an estimated 13 million children aged under sixteen in the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2009), and around 70 per cent receiving pocket money, this represents considerable spending power that does not include money gifted to children or the cash they earn for part-time jobs or individual enterprise. The ChildWise Monitor Report8 (2009) found 84 per cent of UK children aged 5 to 16 years old received a regular income, with 72 per cent receiving pocket money or an allowance and a quarter earning income from a paid job. Average weekly income was ÂŁ10.10, with children aged 5 to 10 years old getting around ÂŁ4.70 per week on average and 11 to 16 year olds receiving ÂŁ12.10 each. This gives a total value of childrenâs annual income of ÂŁ3800m,9 with a further estimated ÂŁ5100m in ad hoc handouts including birthday money. Taken together this represents a combined annual figure of ÂŁ8900m per year (covering pocket money, allowances, paid jobs and ad hoc handouts) at childrenâs disposal.
James McNeal (1987, 1992, 1999) discusses this potentially lucrative market of young consumers spending their money on a range of items such as confectionary, drinks, toys, fast food, magazines, movies and music and influencing family spending10 (directly and indirectly) on products as diverse as breakfast cereals, family cars and holidays. The (2008) ChildWise Report gave an average annual self spend for the UKâs 5 to 16 year olds of ÂŁ310m on crisps and snacks, ÂŁ290m on soft drinks, ÂŁ260m on sweets and chocolate, ÂŁ1090m on clothing, ÂŁ440m on music and CDs, and ÂŁ340m on computer software â a grand total across these categories of ÂŁ2730m. In a number of these areas children are seen as having their own âneedsâ and also a willingness to spend money on such products, but to constitute a market they also need to have the ability and the authority to purchase, as well as some knowledge and understanding of that market.
This idea of a âchildrenâs marketâ is a relatively new development in âwesternâ markets and up to the 1960s children were not seen as customers in their own right but as savers and future customers. While most of the focus has been on childrenâs direct and indirect influence on family purchases, from breakfast cereals through to cars, an increasing number of products and promotions are being targeted directly at children. This has led to debates around pester power and persuasive kids, raising concerns over the ways in which this commercialization of childhood is impacting on family life (Wooton, 2003; Carauna and Vasello, 2004; Preston, 2004; Spungin, 2004). However, more recent views suggest that parentâchild relationships are less confrontational and more collaborative in contemporary western societies. Finally, children are important as a future market for most goods and services and one to be cultivate...