LECTURE 10
What's the social contexts within which children have become the
market?
In the 1980’s, companies began to see more potential in selling to kids. Children
were taken far more seriously. The expansion of children’s media offered new
opportunities for advertisers. Cable television stations specifically designed for
children were introduced. There was also an upsurge in kid’s influencing power.
Parents were far more likely to be permissive and ambivalent, willing to buy the
products the children want.
By the 1990’s there was a revolution in youth marketing. Kids gained
unprecedented buying power and influence over their parent’s spending power,
and their levels of television watching had gone up dramatically. Advertisers
hired psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists to craft more compelling
messages.
Why has age compression become a trend?
Age compression is the practice of taking products and marketing messages
originally designed for older kids and targeting them to younger ones. It includes
offering teen products and genres, pitching gratuitous violence to the 12 and
under crowd, cultivating brand preferences for items that were previously
unbranded among younger kids, and developing creative alcohol and tobacco
advertising that is not officially targeted to them nut is widely seen and greatly
loved by children. The social trend is KAGOY: kids are getting older younger;
treating kids as if they were adults.
Tweening: tweens are in-between teens and children, and tweening consists
mainly of bringing teen products and entertainment to ever-younger audiences.
Tweening is lucrative due to the fact that it involves bringing new, more
expensive products to this younger group. It works because tweens have growing
purchasing power and influence with parents. More money can be made out of
this. Girl power turned into sex power.
Make connections to the concept "gender as commodity". Illustrate the
concept "gender as commodity" by drawing an example from one of the
readings for this lecture. In your answer, refer to an issue of
intersectionality.
Commodities positioned to be either feminine or masculine. a number of sexually
defined attributes that denote either masculinity or femininity on the
supermarket shelf of gender possibilities: turning gender into commodities for
sale.
There is gender differentiation to be seen in the field of kid marketing. Toys for
boys are positioned as boys that want power, action and they want to succeed.
Girls want glamour. Even though gender roles have become more subtle, boys’
characters and masculine messages dominate in ads aimed at boys or both
sexes. Boys are more skittish about gender identities and are highly sensitive to
1
LECTURE 10
, anything that seems feminine. Therefore, boys are preferred in casting ads. Girls
in ads are still portrayed in domestic spaces, and boys are mainly shown
outdoors. Boys are shown in anti-social behaviour and girls in a socially
sanctioned way.
(age and gender intersect)
Cool is one of the universal qualities marketed in kid’s products. It is seen as
something every product tries to be and every kid needs to have. Cool defines
children, that is why cool has become the dominant theme of children’s
marketing. It is very versatile since it has many incarnations, that make it hard to
pin it down, yet it centres on some recurring themes, and these themes are
pushed by marketers in the conception and design of products, packaging,
marketing and advertising. One theme is that cool is socially exclusive, meaning
it’s social symbolism and status are important. Cool has to be exclusionary in
culture; having something others do not have making the kid feel special. Cool is
also associated with being older than one’s age: marketers put older kids in ads
that are targeted to younger kids. Cool is also associated with anti-adult
sensibility: portraying kids with an attitude, outwitting parents and other adults.
Finally, cool is about taboo, the dangerous, the forbidden other.
In kid’s ads, violence has become more restricted, yet this is less the case in
video games, movie as and the internet. The situation is similar with sexuality,
exploitative racial imagery and certain anti-social themes.
Discuss hegemonic representations of Latinidad in Hispanic Barbie
discussed by Goldman. Make connections to the previous course
materials.
Barbie in the 60’s represented the typical American girl, in order to appeal to the
greatest number of the doll’s target audience: the white, middle-class, American
parents and her daughters. Barbie was the personification of the all-round
American Girl. This meant that she had to be Caucasian, light skinned and free of
any other ethnic markers. This representation didn’t just serve the emphasis on
Americanness, but also the language of infinite possibilities: the Barbie was
deliberately shaped with a blank face and without personality, so that the
projection of the child’s dream could be on Barbie’s face.
Mattel has periodically adjusted Barbie to keep up with styles and social realties.
In the early years, only her clothing and accessories allowed to diversify her look
superficially. These other representation didn’t differ much from the standard
middle-class Caucasian Americanness. In 1964, Mattel launched the Travel
Costume series: stories and outfits of Barbie that depicted folkloric or traditional
elements of another culture, that are rendered through caricature, no more
unfamiliar or threatening to American cultural hegemony. It was as affirmation of
the doll’s implacable whiteness and did not represent a cultural opening.
Following a traditional pattern of imperialist penetration, Barbie’s entry into the
multicultural begins from the position of the tourist/postcolonial traveller to
exotic locations.
2
LECTURE 10
What's the social contexts within which children have become the
market?
In the 1980’s, companies began to see more potential in selling to kids. Children
were taken far more seriously. The expansion of children’s media offered new
opportunities for advertisers. Cable television stations specifically designed for
children were introduced. There was also an upsurge in kid’s influencing power.
Parents were far more likely to be permissive and ambivalent, willing to buy the
products the children want.
By the 1990’s there was a revolution in youth marketing. Kids gained
unprecedented buying power and influence over their parent’s spending power,
and their levels of television watching had gone up dramatically. Advertisers
hired psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists to craft more compelling
messages.
Why has age compression become a trend?
Age compression is the practice of taking products and marketing messages
originally designed for older kids and targeting them to younger ones. It includes
offering teen products and genres, pitching gratuitous violence to the 12 and
under crowd, cultivating brand preferences for items that were previously
unbranded among younger kids, and developing creative alcohol and tobacco
advertising that is not officially targeted to them nut is widely seen and greatly
loved by children. The social trend is KAGOY: kids are getting older younger;
treating kids as if they were adults.
Tweening: tweens are in-between teens and children, and tweening consists
mainly of bringing teen products and entertainment to ever-younger audiences.
Tweening is lucrative due to the fact that it involves bringing new, more
expensive products to this younger group. It works because tweens have growing
purchasing power and influence with parents. More money can be made out of
this. Girl power turned into sex power.
Make connections to the concept "gender as commodity". Illustrate the
concept "gender as commodity" by drawing an example from one of the
readings for this lecture. In your answer, refer to an issue of
intersectionality.
Commodities positioned to be either feminine or masculine. a number of sexually
defined attributes that denote either masculinity or femininity on the
supermarket shelf of gender possibilities: turning gender into commodities for
sale.
There is gender differentiation to be seen in the field of kid marketing. Toys for
boys are positioned as boys that want power, action and they want to succeed.
Girls want glamour. Even though gender roles have become more subtle, boys’
characters and masculine messages dominate in ads aimed at boys or both
sexes. Boys are more skittish about gender identities and are highly sensitive to
1
LECTURE 10
, anything that seems feminine. Therefore, boys are preferred in casting ads. Girls
in ads are still portrayed in domestic spaces, and boys are mainly shown
outdoors. Boys are shown in anti-social behaviour and girls in a socially
sanctioned way.
(age and gender intersect)
Cool is one of the universal qualities marketed in kid’s products. It is seen as
something every product tries to be and every kid needs to have. Cool defines
children, that is why cool has become the dominant theme of children’s
marketing. It is very versatile since it has many incarnations, that make it hard to
pin it down, yet it centres on some recurring themes, and these themes are
pushed by marketers in the conception and design of products, packaging,
marketing and advertising. One theme is that cool is socially exclusive, meaning
it’s social symbolism and status are important. Cool has to be exclusionary in
culture; having something others do not have making the kid feel special. Cool is
also associated with being older than one’s age: marketers put older kids in ads
that are targeted to younger kids. Cool is also associated with anti-adult
sensibility: portraying kids with an attitude, outwitting parents and other adults.
Finally, cool is about taboo, the dangerous, the forbidden other.
In kid’s ads, violence has become more restricted, yet this is less the case in
video games, movie as and the internet. The situation is similar with sexuality,
exploitative racial imagery and certain anti-social themes.
Discuss hegemonic representations of Latinidad in Hispanic Barbie
discussed by Goldman. Make connections to the previous course
materials.
Barbie in the 60’s represented the typical American girl, in order to appeal to the
greatest number of the doll’s target audience: the white, middle-class, American
parents and her daughters. Barbie was the personification of the all-round
American Girl. This meant that she had to be Caucasian, light skinned and free of
any other ethnic markers. This representation didn’t just serve the emphasis on
Americanness, but also the language of infinite possibilities: the Barbie was
deliberately shaped with a blank face and without personality, so that the
projection of the child’s dream could be on Barbie’s face.
Mattel has periodically adjusted Barbie to keep up with styles and social realties.
In the early years, only her clothing and accessories allowed to diversify her look
superficially. These other representation didn’t differ much from the standard
middle-class Caucasian Americanness. In 1964, Mattel launched the Travel
Costume series: stories and outfits of Barbie that depicted folkloric or traditional
elements of another culture, that are rendered through caricature, no more
unfamiliar or threatening to American cultural hegemony. It was as affirmation of
the doll’s implacable whiteness and did not represent a cultural opening.
Following a traditional pattern of imperialist penetration, Barbie’s entry into the
multicultural begins from the position of the tourist/postcolonial traveller to
exotic locations.
2
LECTURE 10
