http://www.freep.com/news/metro/cooper1e_20051101.htmDESIREE COOPER: Kids taught to want more stuff
BY DESIREE COOPER
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
November 1, 2005
What do SpongeBob, Dora the Explorer and Ariel the mermaid have in common?
You may think it's their quick wit, their irresistible appeal and their wholesome influence on your preschooler. But Susan Linn says they're really hucksters designed to sell your kids a bill of goods.
"When the religious right attacked SpongeBob for being gay, I thought, 'That's the wrong battle,' " said Linn, a Harvard psychologist who was born and raised in Detroit. "The point is that he's a tool for selling stuff -- clothes, movies and junk food."
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What's worse, marketers are now using science to capture the loyalty of babies, hoping to parlay brand identification into a lifelong loyalty that James McNeal, author of "Kids as Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children," says is worth at least $100,000 per consumer.
"You have a $15-billion marketing industry working with the most sophisticated research," Linn said in an interview last week. "They actually use words like 'cradle-to-grave brand loyalty' or 'owning kids' or 'taking share of mind.' For parents, it's like fighting a smart bomb with a BB gun."
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