I read this book, Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds, by Susan Gregory Thomas, and I would highly highly recommend it, regardless of if your a parent or not.
Not only does the book give you a behind the scenes look at the multi-billion dollar business of marketing to children, but it gives you statistics and awareness that will infuriate you. Here are some examples.
Program Length Commercials. The industry calls them PLCs and they are pretty much all the shows you and I grew up on. I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m going to. Your favorite kids shows and nostalgic heroes, GI Joes, Strawberry Shortcake, Gummi Bears, He-Man, TMNT, Transformers, Smurfs, and on and on, they where/are all commercials. In a brilliant marketing move, advertisers have created half hour long, enticing and engaging commercials, that will make you fall in love with the characters, and, of course, buy all of their licensed products. The kids going to want a GI Joe lunchbox, a Bratz halloween costume, and He-Man underwear. You’ve been had, and your kids will too if you don’t watch out.
Disney wants Your Money. Sure, you might think the Disney princess thing is cute, but it’s also a strategic marketing and branding campaign to hook customers at a young age. If they can hook a kid when they are young that kid (and their parents) will spend over $100,000 over the course of their lifetime on Disney related products.
Baby Einstein Is A Scam. First of all, the whole “Mozart Effect” has no relevance to babies (the study was originally done with a small group of college students, and similar studies on babies show no unique results). Baby Einstein videos, and other merchandise have never been proven to be educational, in fact, the reverse might be true (Baby Einstein makes kids dumb).
There is a bunch more in this book, but I’ll just leave it for you to enjoy when you pick up your own copy. Seriously, read this book.
Shades of Ariel Dorfman, I’m shocked that people haven’t figured this out and need to be told. Returning to Dorfman, he wrote the definitive work on this topic years ago in his book called How to Read Donald Duck which was followed up with a sequel called The Empire’s Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds. The latter title explores Disney heavily particularly in the context of imported media (Dorfman is Chilean). I haven’t read the former (Donald Duck) but it’s my understanding The Empire’s Old Clothes is the more comprehensive title. His argument is that the dangers of commercialization of childhood is far more insidious than even this obviousness. Rather, it’s a matter of inappropriate values being transmitted abroad within cultures and societies; arguably a form of hegemony.
book pretty much agree with what i been saying for a while