One of the reasons many of us own too much stuff is that we fall for companies' marketing tricks. Fight back with the following tips from PBS Kids, many of which are as applicable to adults as to kids.
Help your children identify the tricks that advertisers use to let you know about their product. The next time you watch TV together, have them look for some of these marketing techniques:
- Emotional pull: Marketers often play on emotions to sell a product. The emotion may be love or warmth, as in the case of a Puppy Chow ad, or it may be excitement and the high associated with athletic achievement, as in a Nike commercial.
- Cross marketing: Products that are linked with television shows and movies, such as the GI Joe TV program -- or McDonalds and Burger King kids' meals toys (for example, toys connected with the recent Transformers or Night at the Museum movies). Other examples include Dora the Explorer backpacks, Diego games, and Hannah Montana clothes.
- Celebrities: Ask your child if they think the celebrity actually uses the product. Point out that celebrities almost always get paid to sell a product, regardless of whether they use it or not.
- Product Placement: In movies and TV shows, if you can see the name of the product (or recognize it in another way: say, the distinctive red and white Coke can), most likely the company is paying for its product to be seen in the movie or show.
I've talked about advertisements before, and how much fun kids have "outing" advertisers who don't deliver. PBS Kids suggests a different kind of "ad outing." Since children use, see, and experience a number of different media -- not just TV -- an "ad outing" can help them recognize and dissect the advertisements they encounter out and about in the real world. "Take a pen and paper and go on an outing with your child. Make a list of all the different advertisements you see, such as billboards, logos, advertising on cars, in bus shelters, etc. Talk about the companies behind these advertisements and what they are trying to sell."
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