Marketers
target kids with adult products
12/14/03
VICKI McCLURE
News staff writer
If parents feel under siege from the sex and violence pervading the
goods marketed to youth, perhaps it is because they are.
The Federal Trade Commission examined the selling of violent entertainment
to youth three years ago and found 80 percent of R-rated movies targeted
children under 17 by running commercials during the television shows
they favored; 64 percent of the marketing plans identified children as
their intended audience. The FTC found the same practices widespread
in the music and electronic game industries as well.
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Abercrombie & Fitch, the company that sold thong underwear to
10-year-olds last year, sold a Christmas catalog indicating group sex.
(It quit selling catalogs last week.) MTV advertises its cell phone
service using a nude woman whose most private areas are conspicuously
blurred. Even "The Cat in the Hat," which is used by elementary
schools to promote the nation’s largest reading event, Read Across
America, in its movie version makes crude jokes and ogles a scantily
clad socialite this holiday season.
The cause for concern, the FTC noted, is the high correlation between
exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior. Researchers also
found it increased acceptance of violent behavior in others and exaggerated
the perception of the amount of violence in society. The FTC did not
study entertainment with adult-rated sexual content.
Counselors such as Cindy VanHooser at Fultondale Elementary School see
the impact of violent and sexual imagery as she encounters children who
do not understand why hitting teachers is wrong or who mimic the skimpy
attire of Britney Spears.
The marketing push, however, shows no signs of abating.
Teen Research Unlimited, whose clients include Abercrombie & Fitch,
Nike and Pepsi, released a study last month explaining how and why companies
should target teenagers. The study credited "media vehicles" for
youth – such as MTV, Channel One and Teen People – with giving unparalleled,
direct access to teens.
Companies should capitalize upon them, the study said, because in 2002
teens spent $109 billion of their own money and $61 billion of their
parents’.
Jim Metrock, president of Obligation Inc. in Birmingham, has waged battles
against entertainment and marketing practices aimed at youths since 1995.
His organization published an open letter to Alabamians last Sunday criticizing
school systems such as Jefferson County for playing Channel One in classrooms.
" When we sell access like this to kids it demeans them," he said. "It
teaches them, `You are what you own. You are what you wear’ … They are getting
the wrong opinion of what life is about."
