HW 29- Merchants of Cool

Question: Should advertising to young people be banned? Up to what age? Or all ages?

It is my opinion, that advertising to young people is not a bad thing. It is a smart thing, where market study manifests itself at its purest form, but it is also a potentially destructive thing. Targeting young people for marketing, shapes and influences most of what we believe about social interaction, but it stems from internal desires and appeals to our most basic of needs. marketing to kids is another aspect of an inherently bad system; capitalism. In a capitalist society, advertising to kids, is no more evil than advertising to teenagers, and adults. In a world, where teenagers make up about 1/10th of the american population, the teen demographic is almost impossible to ignore.

Their are two schools of thought that I believe to be equally valid in the context of this question. The first, is that advertising to young people is harmful and takes a manipulative role in the development of future consumers. The idea that advertising is breeding a generation of mindless consumers holds weight, because this is pretty much the exact intent of the corporations when they shove money into advertising their product anywhere possible.

The second school of thought, is that advertising is banking off of the ignorance of the population, and if children are so highly impacted by advertisements, than the parents obviously are not shouldering enough responsibility in contradicting what the kids are fed by corporations.

It is my own opinion, that the real problem lies with uninvolved parents. I think that by using marketing tactics which target juvenile sexual expression, cultural icons and self-image, the companies act as role models. Ideally, a child's parents should be inspiring what the kid view's as cool, through non-material associations. Making cool equate with new shoes, or a nice car, is the result of being berated by commercials, advertisements, endorsements and product placement.

I think that the best example of product placement being more effective than parental guidance, is in the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry spent massive amounts of money endorsing movie stars, stylizing ad campaigns and commercializing the "cool" factor in cigarette smoking. Even placing print ad's at children's eye level on deli's and supermarkets counters ensured a young demographic with which to establish a strong brand identity.

Like we discussed with Matt Fried in class on tuesday, the real root of young peoples search for coolness is partly the direct result of a lack of feeling acceptance as a child. Being accepted by your family, is than substituted by being accepted socially, which than leaves children open for the marketing tactics of whatever brand name or product appeals the most to them. Being accepted for what you own, rather than who you are, is entirely what these companies and the whole capitalist system is banking off of. Apple may not be able to sell you love and affection, but they sure as hell can sell you a way to tune out the world, and store all your music, photos and videos.

I think that marketing is something that companies need to be held accountable to. The lack of ethics in advertising used to be the fact that their was no real significant regulation in the industry. When the laws making it illegal to advertise cigarettes on television and to kids were passed, the prospect of breeding a legion of pre-teen cigarette smokers became less likely. At that point, it was up to the parents to make sure what leeway the tobacco industry still had in targeting their children was eliminated by their own influence. When it comes down to it, the decision has to be made as a parent who you would rather have influencing your child; you, or Marlboro?