Letting your child get involved in this primary level of marketing research, and understanding how marketing research works, is a good way to let the child figure out how marketing works, and will work in the future, make the child more aware of marketing, and as a result, become less succespable to it.

Can’t say I’d let my kid participate, mainly because I think the last thing I wanna do is help a marketer make their stuff more irresistible to impressionable children. Maybe for some educational toy or something like that, but it’s still probably a no.

On another note, I found the idea of turning the soap bottle into a recognizable toy interesting from a developmental perspective. I am an undergrad, and just recently wrote a paper on the connection between executive functions and ADHD. Executive functioning is the ‘management system’ of our minds. It coordinates different cognitive functions and is responsible for things like self-regulation and impulse control. One of my key points was that children’s play has changed dramatically in the last 50+ years in that children depend much more on realistic props in imaginative play. One of the innovations I cited was the Tools of the Mind Program (Bodrova & Leong, 2001), which works with children to develop their ability to sustain dramatic play and to utilize simple props in many different contexts. The teachers in the program assisted the children to go from realistic props, such as plastic food, to imaginative props, such as a wooden block, in an effort to develop the children’s executive functioning, and thus their abilities to get along in social groups by being able to put other peoples needs or wants before their own, for example.
My question is, what is better for our children’s minds, to imagine that soap bottle as a car (or maybe a rocket ship, or maybe a baby), or for them to be locked into that soap bottle as a car?

Trent bought the car-shaped shampoo because it doubled as a shampoo and a toy for his child. Obviously this is one family that actually benefitted from the marketing research that was conducted, yes the company benefits too, but so do the people that end up liking the product. Why cant it be a win-win situation?

I do talk about marketing with my girls – mainly the commercials we see – and how companies can make their toys seem so fun on TV, only to find when you get them home they’re not as exciting as they seemed to be on the commercial. They’ve even found this to be true in their short 10 and 7 years.

I must admit, I did feel a little unomfortable during the last toy study we did when they had my then 6 y/o girl watch several commercials, asking her questions about each one. She did get a great toy and $20 for about 45 minutes of our time.

Again, we talk about these things, especially when we see a new commercial or one of their friends gets something. We don’t generally watch a lot of television – mostly PBS after school. They don’t act all bratty and beg and scream for toys when we go to the store. Hopefully, we are raising them to not be so…”consumeristic” (I don’t know if that’s a real word).

I draw the line at coming into my home, though. I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting some stranger in, especially to spend time alone with my child. Although, when you think about it, when our kids watch commercial-driven television or even get on the computer (think Webkinz, Build-A-Bear) you are letting them into your home, in a sense.

I feel the participation in the marketing lends itself more to discussion of tricks marketers play on kids on how they *need* things- moreso than just theoretical discussion dissecting ads. A kid fresh from someone trying to niche them into some type of marketing can have an appreciation of how desparate companies really are for their dollars- and be a more empowered consumer.

I agree with Tim and SavingFreak too. My husband and I are planning to start a family soon. We’d like to invest in mutual funds, an IRA type account for his/her college. If there’s anything at all left when they graduate college, we’d like to roll that into a retirement for them. Perhaps even continue contributing a very small amount once they’re an adult. If they don’t want to go to college and want to start a business, then we’d like to be able to help with what we’ve set aside.

We were deconstructing advertising and other messages long before she started doing the surveys, but we’ve talked about what the researchers are looking for and what they might do with the information all along. Because she’s been homeschooled for the past 8 years, we have more time to spend on this kind of thing than most families, and have integrated it into her education about communication, business, and the like.

I liked the fact that one of her favorite magazines, Teen Voices, deconstructs an ad in every issue. I think New Moon did that a few times, but it’s been years since she was in the right age range for that publication (both are non-commercial and produced by girls).

Although I agree with most things in this book, it still paints a dark picture of the marketing world. It’s good to have one’s conciousness raised, but no need to get paranoid about it.

Funny, I’m not sure if I would let my own daughter do the same thing, even though it was harmless. I wouldn’t have her do it for the sake of feeling empowered/respected, Vered, just to make some money and learn how the world works.