Does Marketing Promote Child Abuse?

July 2, 2008 · Filed Under Thoughts · Comment 

Now, why should a blog from Italy be asking such a question? Well, I have a child, and like most children, he watches TV. My little son is bombarded with highly sophisticated targeted marketing. You probably know what I mean.

Here is an illustration. My child watches X cartoon, and X cartoon is then followed by adverts showing off products directly related to X cartoon. Child then passes Y shop and stops when he sees all those products on offer relating to X cartoon, or film. Yes, even the great Walt Disney appears to be abusing my child, not to mention the likes of Steven Spielberg, and even the great J K Rowling, and many others.

Oh, I’ve studied a little marketing theory, and I know about targeting those who influence purchasing decisions, and as anyone with children will know, children are influencers par excellence. This is something which has not escaped the notice of all those marketing strategists par excellence either.

A Tale

Let’s take this a little further. Only let’s assume my child is a little older now, and is a girl, around 12. A daughter, like yours, brought up on a diet of TV, which started with those oh so innocent ‘toons, and who travels to school surrounded by advertising promoting the good things in life, such as Dolce and Gabbana and Versace clothes and accessories.

My daughter pesters me and her mother endlessly about buying her some ‘nice’ clothes. However, I don’t capitulate, not this time. After all, she already has the camera phone. I say ‘no’, as is my perogative as a parent. As with many parents, I want to try to instil some values in her and send the message to my daughter that there is more to life than looking good and wearing Versace.

My little daughter hates me and her mother. At school though, our little love is surrounded by friends with parents who splash out on flash clothes. Got to keep up appearances and all that. My daughter feels marginalised and outcast, simply because she cannot have what she has been brainwashed into believing she needs.

One day, the little girl stomps off after yet another argument over Prada bags, grouching over how stupid and odious her parents are, and how ‘They don’t understand.’. Only they do, but it is she who does not ‘comprehend’.

Now, this girl is not stupid, and so she hatches a little plot to enable her to raise the money she needs to acquire the items she so desires. This plot involves popping into the toilets at school, and taking a few knickers down and topless shots of herself with her camera phone. Just like the blond ’showgirls’ she’s seen on TV. The ones who sell calendars full of topless shots of themselves. Our little entrepreneur then sells these images for a few Euros and suddenly finds she can afford the designer labels she had been lusting after.

Quite an appalling tale, is it not? I dearly wish it were simply something I made up. The trouble is, it isn’t. A 12 year old Italian girl who was told she could not have the latest fashion wear took lewd photos of herself, and did indeed raise enough money to buy new clothes.

The question is ‘Did she abuse herself or was she abused?’.

Catch ‘em Young!

Is the above a result of subjecting youngsters to ‘targeted’ marketing? It certainly could be. My youngster has been having his mind conditioned ever since he was old enough to watch, for want of a better example, a Disney cartoon.

From the story above, it could be argued that marketing has indeed led to child abuse, and the incident above is most probably the tip of an iceberg. Actually, I wrote about a similar incident in my ‘The Things A Girl Will Do‘ post back in December 2006.

Marketing is Not Bad Per Se

While I’m wary of marketing which abuses young minds and may, in turn, lead to abuse, especially via the tactics of ‘family friendly’ companies who should know better, I’m certainly not against marketing in general.

Good, ethical, marketing can help adults find products, information, and even assistance, which they probably never would have come across if someone had not employed some marketing tactic or other.

The overall problem, as I see it, and I’ve rattled on about this before, is that mankind is great at acting, but dire when it comes to contemplating the consequences of its actions.

Profit is good, but how well can we sleep at night knowing that the way we do business may promote child abuse?

Still, what the heck. Life is short, why should I bother about the future?

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When an advert isn’t. Or is it?

October 18, 2007 · Filed Under Blogging · 5 Comments 

During one of my English language classes today we started discussing one of the projects that my students had worked on as part of their marketing master. This project happened to involve creating a marketing and communications plan for a holiday resort (tourist village/villaggio turistico) in Italy. During our discussion I mentioned Booking.com, one of the foremost on-line hotel booking sites in the world. In an attempt to justify stating that all hotels should be listed on Booking.com, I typed ‘hotels, Italy’ into Google and, lo and behold, the first sponsored ad was for Booking.com. However, one of my students noticed that Booking.com did not appear in the normal search results. Effectively she intimated that she would be more likely to click on a normal search result, than on one of the sponsored keyword generated ads. Indeed, had Booking.com appeared at the top of the normal results she would have visited the site most probably.

Very interesting I thought, how ‘normal’ Google’ results were not perceived by this person as being adverts, even though, in my opinion, they function in much the same way. I wonder how many others think in the same way, and do not perceive search engine results as being advertising. Quite a few, I imagine, and this may indicate that SEO is potentially more effective than keyword advertising.

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The Chinese Dragon

May 11, 2005 · Filed Under Milan - My Zone · Comment 

The news here in the living museum has been carrying a lot of items about the flood of imports from China recently. And finally the dear old politicians have been getting a little worried - better late than never.

I happen to live in an area of Milan which is often referred to as ‘China Town’, due to its high percentage of Chinese immigrants. They don’t get on my nerves, but some Italians find their presence unwelcome. This could, in part, be down to the fact that are taking over most of the shops in the area. No sooner does one Italian owner shut up shop, so to speak, than a new Chinese outlet for cheap clothes opens almost immediately in its place. The area is riddled with shops selling cheap jeans, underwear and just about any other clothing item you can name. Not only this but there is a huge number of Chinese supermarkets too. And even Chinese newspapers. However, many of those who buy the cheap clothes are not Chinese. The market stall owners know a good deal when they hear about it and regularly come round here to stock up.

The strange thing about all this is that Italians (according to the TV news - not the most reliable source here) are getting a little uppity about the Chinese who are making a quick buck, but no mention is made of all those Italian businesses that have been making use of production facilities in China for some time now. Nor is the fact that many businesses are doing better as a result of having low priced products to sell . You sell something, you make money, simple and much better if your profit margin is good and high.

The West was over the moon when China started to abandon its communist ways. Capitalism won again. Only the Chinese are taking everyone at their own capitalist game and beating them. This was not supposed to happen. What was supposed to happen was than western business would move into China, make things at knock down prices and continue to sell them at high western prices. That profit margin thing. But, the Chinese are a bit too clever, and they want their piece of the action, and they are getting it. Much to the disdain of Italian and many other business men, I imagine. Talk about turning the tables.

One suspects that this is why there has been so much anti-Chinese press recently - a few big Italian businesses are starting to feel the fire which is coming from the dragons mouth and burning. We are often reminded by the media that Chinese products are inferior in quality and can be unsafe. It’s a form of anti-marketing, I suppose. It would be rather embarrassing to hit Chinese products with import taxes, as many of the companies making things in China are not Chinese as I said before. This is a bitter pill and nobody is quite sure who is going to swallow it and come up with a solution - if there is one, that is.

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