Does good branding influence toddlers?

You bet.

Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital just shared snippets of a study that will be released in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The study finds that kids aged 3 to 5, when presented with identical foods — one in a McDonald’s wrapper and the other without — overwhelmingly rated the branded one as tasting better.

Proof of the Happy Meal in action.

Nic Jones at BrandChannel.com explores if it is the brand or the hype around the brand that ignites a child’s interest and ultimately, loyalty. Jones goes on to explore some of the different ways to slice the brand pie in the fickle kids marketplace.

Martin Lindstrom picks up the discussion, saying that the 8-12 year-old crowd is demanding 24/7 access to the brands that matter to them. He cites an example from Kellogg’s.

Kids across one local market were asked to send a text message to Kellogg’s voting on their favorite song. Hundreds of SMS messages arrived during the day. But what took them by total surprise was that the peak response time was logged in at 3:00 am. Yes, that’s right, 3:00 am.

Lindstrom echos the sentiments of Jones, saying that the key to successful branding within the kids marketplace is being able to jig and jag as the kids’ attention spans shift from one product to another.

Kid brand giant Nickelodeon even hosts an event, The Nickelodeon Brand Equity Marketing Forum to discuss the trends and power of aiming your marketing/branding arrow at 8-14 year-olds.

I don’t think anyone can deny the influence of branding on children. Whether you see it as sin or salvation — its been proven too many times to deny.

So here’s my question. What, if any, responsibility do we have as marketers, if we are targeting children? Is McDonalds evil for pushing its fattening foods to 3-year olds? Is it irresponsible for Nickelodeon to teach others how to influence the watching and buying decisions of the tweens?

Or does caveat emptor apply, no matter the buyer’s age or sensibility?

Mike

I’m all for big conglomerates marketing in whatever way they think best but to an adult audience who should be able to show some level of discrimination. Children are at a level in development where they will develop their entire character on learned behaviour and so heavy marketing to toddlers is in fact enforcing stereotypes and imprinting on them forced values.

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Drew McLellan

Here's my question to all 3 of you. Describe for me the responsibility parents have in this blend. Where do you draw the line?

Or do you think there's a dual responsibility?

Drew

Mac Wilkins

Here's the question that I instantly asked inwardly when I was reading the first three paragraphs of your article (and it may all be the posing of an ignorant, albeit thorough man): Have any of those kids tested BEEN in a McDonalds before and ate a burger? If so, they may have already been influenced. But ah, that is for the Stanford guys to mull about.

Is Mcdonald evil for pushing fattening foods to children? McDonalds is evil for pushing fattening food to anyone, period. Any marketer has a responsibility regardless of target demographic. But perhaps, here in this particular market of kids and tweens, maybe it is enough to view it as- lets say, opportunity to influence values, instead of a affirming a responsibility for them (like a call to arms, marketers, hear ye, hear ye).

Mabe its too naive to expect responsibility from all companies as early as now. The important thing or the most essential responsibility we should be addressing now is the quality of the products we are packaging.

nesh thompson

Just read an article here that has a bit of relevance to this article. Does this mean that marketers not only have to worry about advertising to children but also to their parents?

Babies Learn To Like Junk Food In The Womb

Good question Drew, and a topic that I find quite controversial in nature after watching things like "Supersize Me" etc.

I'm all for big conglomerates marketing in whatever way they think best but to an adult audience who should be able to show some level of discrimination. Children are at a level in development where they will develop their entire character on learned behaviour and so heavy marketing to toddlers is in fact enforcing stereotypes and imprinting on them forced values. What McDonalds do is tantamount to creating an addiction for products before the individual has the chance of waying up the pro's and con's. By the time they have that cognitive power it is too late.

Do I think marketers have a responsibility to children? Absolutely.