Marketing to children is no new phenomenon. Cigarette makers have long
been criticized for its blatant practices of making characters that are highly
appealing to young demographics and promoting images that resonate particularly
well with younger children. Digital
marketers are also attempting to use similar awareness strategies to do this. Parents and regulatory agencies are attempting
to limit this, however. The FTC is
expecting to expand the ‘Children’s Online Privacy Act, which was passed in
1998. Mobile marketing is more prominent
now than it was before and online marketers are able to collect data from young
people from their mobile phones. The new
act would require marketers to get a parents permission before collecting
information from children under 13. While
understandable, these attempts at preventing the targeting of minors have been
marginally effective in traditional marketing and will likely be even less so
with minors. Since so many children are
using the internet unsuperviser, it would difficult for a marketer to stop
their algorithms and programs from
identifying a childs age, demographic and behavior. There is an added cost in actively trying to
prevent oneself from promoting a message to a specific demographic, even if
marketers wanted to do so. From an online marketers perspective,
advertising to children is an investment that has a very long ROI. From what we’ve seen with tobacco companies
and other marketing initiatives, this is an investment that they are willing to
make.
http://www.adlawbyrequest.com/2010/04/articles/kidadlaw-1/four-tips-for-mobile-marketing-to-kids/
ReplyDeleteThis is another good article. it goes over 4 tips on how to best do mobile marketing to kids. I like the idea of finding ways to market responsibly to kids via a mobile phone. There are a lot of educational material and content that could be leveraged on a phone. The PBS Kids unit is giving a tremendous push to both “Super Why!” and “PBS Kids Photo Factory,” two new iPhone apps that emphasize learning and early education. Although PBS Kids has traditionally marketed content to preschool age children, now that preschool age children are quickly learning how to use iPhones, PBS has an incentive to launch mobile apps and other digital content tailored specifically to young children targeted via the mobile channel.