Targeting kids: Marketing Genius?

#1

In an article by Eric Schlosser "Your Trusted Friends" Schlosser pounds us with statistics and other information while keeping the us entertained by keeping the read interesting by including two very important figures of American history, Walt Disney of the Disney corporation and Ray Kroc of the McDonald's franchise.
During the article Schlosser constantly shells us with past time facts of decisions made by the two giants in the advertising world, Disney and Kroc and how each developed a niche in their advertising to one group in particular, kids. Both Disney and Kroc made advertising to include bright colors and great cartoon characters that would be both influential and beneficial to kids by having the characters have good traits and having them salute the good old red, white and blue.
While the article may seem like it is praising the fact of advertising to children, if you look between the lines it is obvious to see Schlosser is really pointing out how children are no longer children, but puppets of corporations and their fun cartoon character advertising. To show this Schlosser spends a few paragraphs showing just how serious the effects of advertising to children can be harmful. "Many studies had found that young children often could not tell the difference between television programming and television advertising (192).
#5

There has been debates of the decades of wether or not corporations should be able to target children as their main audience. Some of the people on the corporations side say "Why not, what's the harm in throwing a few colorful characters in the world of advertising?" while others say it is unethical to target children for a companies quick buck. Eric Schlosser, an investigative journalist, is sided with the latter of the two while I agree with the former.
Companies targetting children for their main source of income is not a problem to me as I was once a child and can fondly remember stepping into a Kroger and seeing a Winnie the Poo coloring book placed near the check out stations of the store. While Schlosser would say that in the end of all of these marketing strategies damage a child's perception on what is what, I say it is okay to have a child have fun with his youth and relish in the ecstasy that is the cartoon advertising world. Though sometimes I think the companies exploit the fact children are easy to take control of and I think the companies should take moral and ethical responsibility to take the advertising down a notch to children.
Schlosser puts in good information through the course of his article which opens up the eyes of those who are ignorant enough to say advertising is not a harmful tool no matter what its use is for. "Children's clubs have for years been considered an effective means of targeting ads and collecting demographic information..." (191). This is where i have common ground with Schlosser, targeting children for their marketing ploys is fine, but if a child feels he needs to join a club for acceptance, then that is where i draw the line of marketing towards children. I think kids of all ages should be able to be accepted no matter if they are a part of the Micky Mouse Club or not.