Kids for Sale?: Childhood and Consumer Culture

Abstract

Commercial marketing to children is by no means a new phenomenon. Indeed, historical studies show that children have been a key target for marketers since as far back as the mid-nineteenth century (e.g., Cross 1997; Cook 2004; Jacobson 2004; Denisoff 2008). Nevertheless, in recent years children have become increasingly important both as a market in their own right and as a means to reach adult markets. Companies are seeking to engage with children more directly and at an ever-younger age; and they are using a much wider range of techniques that go well beyond conventional advertising.