In need of a gut check

[by Todd] A friend of mine once lamented to her parents that she really had problems marketing to kids. It somehow seemed just a bit too underhanded to feel good about it.

"Get over it, you're in advertising," her mother said bluntly.

I kept coming back to that when I read a couple stories about Scion's sponsorship on a kids avatar site, Whyville.net. Don't get me wrong, I fully recognize the value of Scion's deal. Kids hold enormous sway on the big-ticket items that adults buy.

Nor am I so naive to think that young kids aren't going to absorb marketing messages, even without deals like this. My daughters could recognize the logos for fast food restaurants even before they could say their letters.

And that's where my concern kicks in. We all recognize that teens and adults are making us work harder to connect with them. They array technology around them and hypertask in a fashion that makes holds us at arm's length until they are ready to hear from us. Indeed, if Scion's program were targeted at teen drivers, I'd call it relevant and brilliant.

But do our children understand when they are being hit with a marketing message? I can explain to my six-year-old that commercials between cartoons are companies trying to sell her stuff. I don't know that I have a ready-made explanation of product placement in their online adventures.

Somehow this feels like a big budget version of my dad teaching a blissfully ignorant two-year-old nephew to swear like a sailor. Sure, it was funny. But in your gut, you knew it was wrong.

Comments

[Paul McEnany]

Kudos, Todd. At the end of the day, you just can't make advertising to kids right unless your client is an apple and maybe some green beans.

[Jim Bower]

Cruizing through the Blogosphere, I ran across your comments, and thought I would respond. I am the CEO of the company that founded Whyville. My suggestion is that you actually go to the site (perhaps with your daughters) and see for yourself what Whyville is about. The reason you might be particularly interested is that the real reason that Scion is working with us, is to understand how one engages the public in a product in a virtual world. And the most important point about that -- in my view -- is that virtual worlds are two way, and therefore, have a built in "consumer control" of a new type. Bear with me -- marketing in a two way medium, means that the product, in some sense, has to withstand the scrutiny of the users - had Scion simply posted a banner ad (even with flash animation), or Toyota had decided to market a Camry, it wouldn't have worked -- nobody would have paid any attention. However, working together, what Scion and Numedeon's engagement experts we came up with an activity that is fully integrated into this complex real (virtual) community. This is relevant to your concern (which I share) about marketing to kids (or anyone). Let me give you an example, what happens if a company marketing sugar saturated cereals has a sponsorship in Whyville. Well, another new and interesting (we think) sponsored activity in Whyville provides kids the opportunity to substantially increase their virtual salaries, if they manage to maintain a healthy virtual diet. Sponsored by the University of Texas, kids have a choice of thousands of foods each day, and can get fat, sick, or listless (or wealthier) depending on the choices they make. If ‘Sugar-High-Nuts-and Oats” wants to market their product in Whyville – no problem – we will put it on the shelves of our virtual food store, and add its nutritional data to our database – let the kids decide. That is where marketing on the Internet is headed. Our bet is that the two way interactivity of this medium, will not only change marketing, and the relationship of companies to their customers, but also the kinds of products being offered. It already is, in Whyville. Seems to me, looking at your site, that this is exactly the kind of thing you would find interesting.