Stop Targeting Our Kids

calling all moms...

An annual back to school shopping trip was a tradition for my family. We loved the outings with my mom to garner a few new autumnal ensembles to replace those that had been outgrown over a summer of physical activity and growth. We would shed the now stretched and formless bathing suits that had served as our summer uniforms and head out in pursuit of a few new mix and match clothing items and a backpack full of school supplies. Occasionally, grandparents would spring for a nice pair of tennis shoes or a fall jacket that was beyond the reach of our family budget. Following our excursion, my sister and I would lay out our collection of new items on our beds as part of the pre-school ceremony of planning and excitement that preceded the big first day back– a reassuring ritual of anticipation in which our purchases played a fun but ancillary role.

Fast forward to summer 2010. This year, our two school aged kids were out of school for exactly ten days before the first back to school catalog made it’s debut. Ten days! It seems that what used to be an end of summer rite of passage has turned into an all summer event. All summer long we have been told by marketers that we need to be thinking about and prepped for the school year. I am all for preparedness, but according to the piles of ads in my local newspaper, the sleek campaigns throughout the mall, on billboards, slapped on food packaging and on TV, I am woefully behind. According to the clever back to school themed ads in one issue of the Sunday paper, back to school necessities now include (but are far from limited to): contact lenses, cell phones, fruit snacks, haircuts, ipods, nail polish, digital cameras, alarm clocks, wireless internet and neosporin. A “new look” for the “new year” is a popular slogan of one clothing retailer and a mantra for many more, indicating that a complete and total pre-school makeover is now needed as opposed to the first day of school outfit and pre-first day scrub down in the bathtub that seemed to suffice throughout my childhood.

Also interesting are the campaigns developed around college-age youth. Apparently this is a whole new playground for marketers and they are not holding back. Target lists a $300.00 HDTV as one of its “College Essentials 2010” and “Major Must Haves” in print and online. Other items include futons, microwaves, rugs and roommate coordinated bedding. One retailer promotes prepaid student credit cards (reloadable of course) and another, student gift cards titled “bank of mom” and “bank of dad”. Best Buy has an especially savvy back to school campaign titled “Study. Break.” with a subhead that guarantees that shoppers are covered for both “work and play” effortlessly expanding college prep to include video game consuls, DVDs, sound systems, smart phones and just about anything else from the store’s inventory.

I, along with most parents I know, experience a certain type of anxiety unique to sending my children off for another school year. It is hard to let them go and I want to do everything that I can to provide for their success and well-being. I believe marketers know this and use it for the very foundation of their approach towards parents. Children have plenty of anxiety as well. The predominant message of back to school campaigns aimed at our youth exploit their natural search for identity and belonging with the idea that confidence and individuality and success are purchasable and not the hard earned endeavors that experience will show them to be.

It’s crazy to think that, despite all the educational and child-centered promotions and purchases, we still could be selling our kids way short. I am afraid that back to school campaigns built on product ahead of productivity, appearance over aptitude and stuff over substance do just that.

Submitted by: Mindy Holohan