Controversial Manhunt 2

Manhunt 2, a video game produced by Rockstar set to be released this Halloween, has stirred up a lot of controversy. Currently in the video game market there are plenty of violent games, however, none have seemed to cause this much commotion. As critics of the video game have mentioned there is no difference in the amount of blood or violence in Manhunt 2 then other video games that are currently on the shelves. The main problem with this violent game is that it is being produced in a Wi version.

For those of you who don't know, Nintendo Wi is an interactive video game system that is played with a control stick. To play the game the player must simulate the action using the control stick.The problem with Manhunt 2 being released in a Wi version, is that children who purchase this video game will be simulating stabbing people to win this game.

Along with simulating stabbing others, the games original rating of Adult only was lowered to Mature. This has sparked a lot of debate considering advocacy groups feel that children should not be permitted to purchase this game. Although the video game industry claims to want to keep their product out the hands of children, they will not allow legislation to control who purchases what video games. On top of their lack of commitment, they act in ways such as lowering the rating of Manhunt 2 that seem to contradict their statements.

Despite no specific link between violent games and the behavior of children, studies have shown that children who are exposed to violent games tend to be more aggressive. Because of no direct links between video games and violence, the industry does not feel pressure to regulate the retail of their games.

Since there is no reason for the video game industry to self-regulate and hold themselves to a certain standard to protect children, parents must regulate their children. Parents should be aware of the video games their children purchase and research each game to see if it is suitable for their child. In most cases parents have the final purchase decision, with the price of video games being so high, and the parents must be able to chose games that are fitting for their child's age groups.

Inspiration for this post provided by Manhunt 2 topic of the night on news media

Advertising Online

With drama circulating about advertising to children on line, companies are simply switching to a different medium to reach their target. This is an easy solution for marketers considering the increasing amount of time children are spending on the computer. With children growing up learning to be computer savvy, Marketers are finding this to be an easy transition as marketing on television is becoming increasingly difficult.

Advertisers are capitalizing on youngsters interest in online sites by advertising on popular websites and virtual worlds. Habbo Hotel, a popular virtual community that allows teenagers to chat and play games, has begun to patrol their websites. Habbo Hotel, along with other online websites, have begun to have issues with advertisers bothering members while attempting to advertise their products.

Habbo Hotel's policy is simply that it is no acceptable. They have advertiser's that help by sponsoring their virtual community, but these advertisers are chosen based on strict rules and guidelines.

With predictions, such as half of the children are expected to be a member of at least one virtual world by 2011, it is no wonder marketers are taking advantage of this new medium. As stated in an earlier post, many companies are beginning to create their own virtual worlds to promote their brand along with their products.

As companies begin to create and invade virtual worlds directed at children, parents need to become more involved and aware of how their children are using the Internet. The connection advertisers have to children in these virtual communities is stronger than any other medium used to advertise to children. Advertisers are able to easily gather information about these children while attempting to sell them products.

Information for this post provided by Online Marketers Aim for the Kids

Kellogg takes a new approach

After recently being selected by the Parent's Jury as the recipient of the Smoke and Mirrors" awards for their Coco Pops commercials Kellogg has decided to change how they market their products to children. Kellogg has made the decision to self-regulate their marketing efforts to children.

Their plan starts with no longer advertising their products to children under 12. The only advertising they will be doing for their products will be if their particular product meets the nutritional guidelines set for calories, sugar, fat and sodium. Along with doing away with most of their marketing efforts aimed at children, Kellogg has vowed to no longer use licensed characters to promote their products.

Kellogg's plans to weed out their marketing is set to be put into affect in the next year or so. These changes are being made because of threats of a lawsuit against Kellogg and Viacom. The lawsuit was over the their marketing directed at children. The lawsuit will be dropped if these companies both change their approach to marketing to children.

Along with ending their marketing for certain products that don't fall into the nutritional guidelines, Kellogg plans to reformulate some of their current products so that they do meet the guidelines.

Kellogg's efforts are not the first of their kind. Last fall 10 food and beverage companies announced that they will begin to self-regulate their advertising to children. McDonald's and General Mills, a large competitor of Kellogg, were among the 10 companies. It seems as though it was only a matter of time before Kellogg followed the trend of self-regulation.

These efforts by Kellogg and other large food and beverage companies are affecting other companies views on self-regulation. I feel that if other companies will have to eventually change their ways to conform with industry standards or they to could receive threats of lawsuits due to their advertising to children.

Information for this post provided by Kellogg to Curb Marketing of Foods to Children

Finding a Balance

Doing what sells or doing what's right. Many marketers have been faced with this question, yet most are more concerned with what sells. Despite the urge to sell more products at any cost, few companies are beginning to change how they target young markets. Some advocates argue that advertising to children is unethical and should be banned. Others however are taking a different approach.

Self-Regulation seems to be a current trend in marketing to young children. While companies are receiving a lot of criticism from their marketing efforts to children, some are taking advantage of this and making some good press for themselves. Companies such as Chuck E. Cheese, Fisher Price, MGA, Entertainment, etc. have begun to "self-regulate" when creating marketing targeting children.

Fisher Price has said that they test their marketing before implementing it. Not only do they use focus groups made up of children in the targeted demographics, but they also test the marketing on parents. That way they can hear reactions about their campaigns before they begin to air.

MGA Entertainment self-regulates differently than Fisher Price. Their self-regulation sets guidelines for the content that must be including in their advertisements as well as what they cannot use. The said that their marketing cannot over promise. Also the content must include a full description of their products and must not misrepresent the product.

Despite these efforts, some parents still don't see this as enough. In this case, brands remind parents that protecting their children is their own responsibility and not the responsibility of the brand.

I personally feel that for companies to make an effort at all to protect their young markets is admirable. Simply because they are not obligated to. They are recognizing current concerns of parents and helping to ease their concern by implementing self-regulation. At least these companies are making an effort, even if it is to shed a little light on their company. I agree that parents must be the person that ultimately protects their children from this marketing and as a parents they need to praise companies that help them carry out this responsibility.

Information for this post provided by How Can You Advertise to Children Responsibly?

Corporate America Crowds My Space

The new trend in reaching young adults is through social networks. The social networks most often used to target these audiences are MySpace and Facebook. Companies are creating entire campaign based off these social networks. Another popular trend in reaching these younger markets are using student ambassadors to help their campaign.

Companies such as Burger King, JP Morgan, Chase have begun to capitalize on the accessibility to their target audiences through these social networks. Burger King created a profile on MySpace for their infamous King character. The King that is featured in Burger King commercials has a profile that represents his and the company. Members of MySpace are able to friend the King. Burger King admits to winning over its 120,000 friends with free episodes of 24 and American Dad. Chase chooses Facebook as an alternative online advertising location.

JP Morgan along with other companies have begun to realize how effective student ambassadors are. Student Ambassadors help companies to promote and bring excitement to their campaign among their younger markets. Over 300 student ambassadors were hired by JP Morgan that helped create events that featured food and game to create a buzz for their company.

Over the summer I worked for a marketing firm and helped them develop a campaign for ESPN GameDay. They were creating Hometown Heroes events in locations of large college football schools. To help promote these events we showed ESPN how they could use Facebook to advertise, but most importantly how they could use student ambassadors and their access to Facebook to advertise at a low cost. We showed them how to create groups and events. All they would need are student ambassadors at each respective school with a lot of friends on the social network to create the buzz.

Social Networks have been growing in effectiveness and companies are just realizing the potential on these sites. MySpace has over 100 million members most of them under the age of 30. With these numbers at the marketers fingertips companies need to learn how to use these networks at their advantage.

Information for this post provided by Marketing to Kids Where They Live

HD Radio, Satelite Radio...Bus Radio?

While searching for information on the latest news in Marketing to Children I stumbled upon an article from Palm Beach County. Apparently the county's school district is considering an alternative option to normal radio on buses. Their plan is to equip 200 of the district's 645 buses with what they refer to as "Bus Radio". The "Bus Radio" will play preprogrammed Top 40 songs with “age-appropriate content,” public safety messages and commercials.

The district's reason for the "Bus Radio" is to help prevent student fights and disruptions. The district feels that by removing exposure to offensive and sexually explicit lyrics on local radio stations they will see a lower rate of student fighting. My response...how?

How does the district feel that by changing what the students listen to on the bus to and from school will have a significant affect on their behavior. I'm not sure how long children in Palm Beach County are typically on a bus for, but the longest I remember being on a bus was about 15 minutes, so half an hour total. The children are exposed to this music in the car to school, they download it on their computers on to their iPods which they bring with them on the bus. I personally think that they are wasting their money trying to impress the parents of the district.

Another thing I found to be interesting was that the same school district has recently allowed advertising on the bus. Their rules for advertising...ads are OK as long as they don’t promote tobacco, alcohol or condoms. I find it contradictory that they are trying to "protect" the students from music, but they are allowing advertisers manipulate them by placing ads in their buses so that they receive a cut of the profit.

Inspiration for this post provided by Commercial Alert

Marketing to Children....virtually

As many adults have gained an interest to the virtual world ofSecondlife, children are mimicking that interest. Children are not yet on Second life, but they are on Webkinz. Webkinz is an virtual world made exclusive for children that purchase Webkinz products. To gain access to this virtual world a children must purchase a Webkinz stuffed animal. Each animal comes with an ID tag that gives the child access to the virtual world.

The popularity of this virtual world for children has sparked other advertisers. Many advertisers have begun to create virtual worlds to attract their young target markets. Many also are doing so through product purchase. In these cases, most often, a child is more interested in gaining access to their virtual world than the toy, but understand they must purchase it anyways.

Other companies that have followed Webkinz lead include Disney and Mattel. Mattel introduced their "Barbie Girl" site in April. The site now boasts 5.5 million registered users. In August Mattel put our a Barbie Girls mp3 player/flash drive. The device, which is also doll shaped, allows Barbie Girl members to access additional features. Disney's "Penguin Club" has about 1.6 million monthly users. With stats such as that it is no wonder the virtual world cost them $700 million.

These virtual worlds are so successful because children are learning at a young age to use the Internet. At the school I work at many parents admit that their children are better with computers than they are. The children I work with are as young as four years old. Anything that let's children practice and improve their computer skills exciting to them. Also anything that involves animals, which most of them do, are instant favorites. Although I don't know much about the set up of Webkinz, from what I understand children fed, play with and take care of pets. Sounds similar to the ever popular Tamagotchi...

Inspiration for the post provided by The Hottest Thing in Kids Marketing? Imitating Webkinz

And the award goes to....

The Parent's Jury just held it's third annual Children's TV Food Advertising Awards. The Parent's Jury is a parent's group concerned with aggressive junk-food marketing. These annual awards consist of three main categories. The three categories are "Pester Power", "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Parent's Choice".

It is no surprise that the winner of the "Pester Power" award was given to McDonald's. In fact, this is the third year they were chosen as the award winner. If you didn't pick up on it, this is only the third year of the Children's TV Food Advertising Awards, indicating that McDonald's has won this award all throughout. This year McDonald's was selected because of their use of SpongeBob SquarePants toys to lure children to their restaurants. The SpongeBob SquarePants toys were given away in their happy meals.

McDonald's main reason for being chosen was because of their continuous unethical practices in manipulating children. As mentioned in an early blog post, children prefer food that is wrapped in a McDonald's wrapper. Despite receiving this award for the third year in a row, McDonald's states that they have reduced their advertising directed at children by 60 percent. McDonald's also has changed their happy meal options to include apple slices and water, as healthy options for children.

The recipient of the "Smoke and Mirrors" awards went to Kellogg's cereal for their Coco Pops commercials. The "Smoke and Mirrors" award goes to companies that market unhealthy food options as nutritious. Kellogg's took the prize when they marketed their Coco Pops cereal as having 55 percent wholegrain. The fact of the matter is the cereal contains 28 grams of sugar, which was left out of advertisements for this product.

Finally the winner of the "Parent's Choice" award went to Woolworths. The took the award for their Fresh Fruit Kids ad . The ad featured a young girl eating fruits, vegetables, and cheese.

Although these awards help show advertisers that we are against manipulative marketing to children, this will do nothing to change their ways. They know their advertisements work and will continue to exploit the children because they are easily influenced. Along with these awards to show marketers we want a change, the government needs to stare making changes governing advertising to children.

In Australia, their government is fighting to put an end to these deceptive advertisements targeting children. They are expected to ban the use of licensed characters to market junk food to children. This means characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants or Shrek will not appear on McDonald's commercials and perhaps be banned from their infamous happy meals. Also they are trying to ban advertising confectionery, sweetened breakfast cereals and fast food restaurants from children's programs.

These measures although harsh, are the only way to stop children from being targeted. Also these may lead to companies such as cereal companies and fast food restaurants to begin make their products healthier. Advertisers are aware of child obesity problems and have done nothing to stop it. Even tactics such as the Children's TV Food Advertising Awards held by the Parent's Jury have not shamed them into changing there ways. If they refuse to change because of ethical reasons, we must make them change based on legal ramifications.

Information for this post from Parent's Jury

Read a book or watch a movie.

It seems that most children these days would agree with the latter. Most students are growing up disliking, even hating, to read. Although where I work we do have a few children that stick there nose in a book all day, it seems that getting children to read anything is a challenge. When we do invite the children to pick up a book, older students tend to pick books meant for younger readers or they pick books such as "Where is Waldo". It seems that marketers are beginning to understand this trend and are supplementing the act of reading with a task a simple as watching a movie.


MGM has recently been producing "Cliff Notes Ultimate Study Guide". This ultimate study guide is a package deal which includes a movie and the cliff notes that go with the corresponding book. Chris Franchino, the marketing director at MGM, doesn't see it as a bad idea. He thinks that students who purchase and use these products are doing work. What he is missing is that it is just another way of teaching children that there is a way around reading. Instead of playing to the children's dislike of reading they should be creating products that encourage reading. Even if they are products such as books on CD's or through iTunes.

Despite my feelings towards MGM's "Ultimate Study Guide" they are also reproducing movies meant for younger children to include a caption option. These new products are part of their Follow Along series. This caption option is easily turned on by a parent and plays the movie as normal with captions that go along with the words. As the characters speech the words that they have said light up in yellow. I feel that this caption option is will be a successful tool for children learning to read. As the children watch their favorite movies they learn to associate written words with the words spoken in the movie.

Inspiration for this post came from Principled Discovery