Marketing to Children

In the Victorian era, children grew up with one or two toys, yet today it seems kids have been spoiled by their parents to have any new toy under the sun regardless of the price.


One reason for this could be the employment rate of women has risen considerably today which results in latchkey kids who are given toys to amuse themselves as their mums are not around as much.

Another reason for children receving more toys could be that employment is very important to the father and mother resulting in later birth of first child which means by then the parent would have established a reasonable income and be able to afford all the toys the child asks for.

Pester Power
Pester Power is the power children have, by repeated nagging, of influencing their parents to buy advertised or fashionable items. This is especially the case at Christmas when a christmas list just doesn't cut it for kids anymore as they find more and more things they want from adverts.

Specifically, TV advertising may lead a child to select material objects over more socially oriented alternatives, potentially increase parent-child conflict and may lead to a more disappointed, unhappier child

 (Goldberg and

Gom 1978).

One of the reasons behind this parental concern is that children can be exploited

more easily if they do not understand the differences between television programming and

commercials and if they do not knowthe selling intent of commercials. If children understand

the intention of commercials and are able to distinguish them from programs, however, the

potential effect of advertising might be reduced.


Also the divorce rate has increased meaning children have step families so they recieve two lots of toys instead of just one. Grandparents today also live longer so they spoil children more as well as older siblings.


Tv advertising is used for many products and services to get their messages across to their target audience such as