Marketing to Kids Ethically – part 1

Time to stop beating about the bush. Is marketing to children ethical or not?

My opinion; yes its fine to market to children

My rider: that the product and brand have been developed “ethically” and that there is absolutely no attempt by the brand owner to exploit children and their families.

How is this possible? Through balance and the right attitude.
My biggest fear of the modern children’s brand is that they belong to Goliath’s; massive companies with big profits to maintain. Their rules on how to bring a product to market are followed to the letter no matter who they target and for most adult products this is fine; we are big enough and clever enough to be able to choose whether we “fall for it” or not; it is up to us to apply our own free will and purchase or not.

Now children also have free will, but the mind is susceptible to many influences when you are young and children are learning to adapt to a big scary world (at least this is what it seems to them at times) and unfortunately fear is often a factor in decisions they make – scared they won’t fit in, scared of bullying, wanting the same as everyone else etc – and this leads to a possibility of being exploited. So when a big manufacturer tells a child their food is healthy it ticks the right button with a child who has been told in school and at home that they should eat healthily. If that food says it is healthy and it actually is on all measures (low fat, low sugar, low salt, high in vitamins etc) then this is fine the brand is doing the right thing and the marketing is perfectly ethical. If however the food is actually high in fibre or wholegrain, but also is packed with high levels of salt and refined sugar then it is not right to claim that it is a “healthy” food. It must also “do the right thing” and be honest with the customer (the child and pestered parents).

Picking on Cereals!
The vast majority of processed, packaged,Cereals are not a healthy food and should not be marketed as such. They are a high (refined) sugar, high salt start to the day and should admit as such. They are high energy, which we all need. There’s nothing wrong with this if the family make sure they get the required “balance” of foods during the rest of the day. So let’s stop selling cereals as healthy and let mom know what their children are eating and that it would be a sensible idea to cut out sugar and salt later in the day to compensate for the high amounts eaten at breakfast.

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