Marketing and young people

What do you know about marketing cool?

Are you the parent of a teen or preteen? Did you know that the hot topic of the moment is advertising and young people? Here are tips and sound advice to help your kids get savvy about advertising.

If your teen or preteen tells you that to be cool or part of the cool crowd, he or she absolutely needs a particular baseball cap or brand of jeans, it's because the advertising targeting him has been effective. Marketing specialists understand a lucrative return on investment when they see one.

But aside from inducing your children to buy more and more, what messages does advertising send them? What impact does advertising have on their self-esteem, on their self-image and on how they view others? And how can you, as a parent and consumer, help them develop critical thinking skills about advertising and its pervasive presence? These are questions worthy of analysis.

Creating need and dissatisfaction

Adolescence is a critical period in human development, and is starting earlier and earlier. The 8- to 16-year old market is in full expansion because of this group's ever increasing spending power and influence on family spending. By treating teens and preteens like mature consumers, businesses exploit their feelings of insecurity and self-doubt to make them think that they have to use their products or services to be cool.

Advertising targeting young girls uses images of exceptionally thin, attractive and sexy women to suggest that this is the most prevalent body shape. That's only a small step away from believing that you have to be thin to be happy, and more and more teenage girls are buying into it. Statistics on eating disorders among teenage girls (and, increasingly, boys) are proof of the impact these media images have on them. The fashion, cosmetics, plastic surgery and dieting industries profit a great deal from teenage girls' desire for the perfect body, face and demeanour.

And how do boys fit into all of this? While girls are subjected to images of physically perfect role models, for young men, being cool is more a question of attitude. Advertising targeted to men depict guys who are often rebellious and teeming with confidence, power, physical strength and dominance, bearing the implicit message that this is this is the way one has to behave to be cool. Gone are the images of sensitivity, compassion or vulnerability, which are all natural and desirable personality traits.

How are teenagers to think about what they can or should become?

Image victims

Advertising geared toward young people is extremely effective because it leads them to believe they are nothing without the product being marketed. Teens are very sensitive to this and some even go as far as worshipping logos. But what happens to those who, for various reasons, are not able to keep up with the trends? The impact on their self-image and self-esteem is real, and has direct consequences on their development and emotional balance.

Self-esteem is the positive value of understanding we are individuals. It's the spark in someone's eyes, the fragile flame that can be blown out by criticism, teasing and sarcasm. A decrease or loss of self-esteem can, to varying extents, bring on problems of isolation, depression, drugs and alcohol use, and even violent or suicidal acts.

These incidences are occurring more and more frequently in our society, and are a reminder to parents and educators about the importance of their role in the future and well-being of their children.

Prevention instead of treatment

Children under the age of eight have a difficult time distinguishing advertising from reality, and often don't understand that someone is trying to sell them something. This is why in Quebec, direct consumer advertising geared to children under 13 is prohibited¹.

1. This law is only applicable in Quebec.

An understanding of the overall workings of marketing and advertising can be a big help to your teens and preteens to develop critical thinking skills and become smart and autonomous shoppers.

Here is some preventative advice regarding the influence of advertising:

• Broach the subject when they're young.
• Explain how advertising works.
• Marketing: learning to identify the tricks of the trade.
• Your teenagers: prime advertising targets!
• Food through the eyes of advertisers.
• Money and your child.
• Learning to shop.