Is marketing to children continuing to skyrocket?
It’s continuing to escalate; children are marketed to every waking moment of the day, and they are marketed to even within the toys they play with. Some companies even advertise on baby paraphernalia — sheets for a baby’s crib are branded! How can you advertise to babies? Reading to babies is really important. It is a great way to get children hooked on books and the baby associates all these warm cuddly feelings, snuggling with the mom or the dad, with reading. And isn’t that wonderful. So parents want to read to their young kids right away. It makes them better parents. So advertisers came up with the idea of creating books that look just like product packages. If you look at a Fruit Loops book cover and the front of a Fruit Loops cereal box, there’s no difference, it’s hard to tell one from the other. It’s the same with the M&Ms counting book — it is the M&Ms candy wrapper. So now these babies are getting all these warm snuggly feelings not just for reading, but for M&Ms. No wonde
