Child Consumers

I disagree with Ha Neul’s post, The Best Cereal Commercials. With the world rapidly changing, children are constantly exposed to advertisements through the television, the internet, and other media. Making children the target customer segment is not a mistake in the advertiser’s part, but a plan to make children into life-long consumers.

Studies have shown that children under the age of eight are unable to critically comprehend televised advertising messages, so they are likely to accept the advertisers’ messages as truthful and accurate. Therefore, even though the cereal is definitely not nutritional and the commercial hints that there are nutritional benefits in the cereal, children are unable to comprehend that the cereal is bad for them.

The problem here is that now more than ever, kids have an influence in the parent’s decision to purchase items, and parents are more willing to buy more for their children. When children nag for what they want for long periods of time, parents will eventually give in and give their children what they want. Also, time-stressed parents can be a factor to the willingness to buy goods for their children. Also, busy parents who feel guilty for not spending enough time with their children will substitute material goods.

In addition to cereal companies trying to promote their product with a point of difference in mind, they are also strategically making advertisements more frequent and more attractive so that it can target the influential children consumers that will be the ones buying their product in the future.

Image: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/En/News/NewsAndFeatures/Pages/Target-market-children-as-consumers.aspx