Marketing to Kids While Partnering with Parents

Marketers all know about “pester power” and the increasing influence kids have over family purchase decisions in almost every category. To the tune of $500 billion dollars, according to statistics. So what else is new? Plenty.

Children now account for a whopping $21.4 billion worth of their own purchasing power. As kids get into their tweens, ages 8-12, they have their own discretionary dollars, and they’re likely to purchase what they want with some degree of guidance from their parents.

Trends point to the need for more engagement between kids’ brands and their target demographic groups. And parents are an important part of this equation. Failure to connect with each is a mistake. Recent push back against children’s marketing shed light on an important issue: parents are increasingly concerned about hard-sell efforts aimed at their kids. So brand interaction to gain parental trust is paramount if brands are to succeed.

In spite of their reservations, parents are spending on their children. Packaged Facts projects families spent $143 billion on children’s products in 2010. Since the recent recession, adults have cut back on spending for themselves, but they’re still spending on their children. What are parents looking for now? A reason to believe. A brand must demonstrate its value, showing parents it nurtures, educates, elicits their kids’ creativity, feeds their imaginations, reinforces positives or helps them to grow. Parents will gladly say “yes” to such a brand. That points to the marketer’s need to engage parents, not only their children.

Kids themselves are more sophisticated now than even a couple of years ago. They still watch plenty of television, and TV advertising is extremely influential on young kids and tweens. These groups make instantaneous decisions when exposed to advertising: they either want it or they don’t. And if the response is a positive one, kids “want it now” and they let their parents know it. As a result, marketers spend a whopping $15 billion on advertising aimed directly at children.

Besides TV, more kids are coming online and at an increasingly younger age. eMarketer projects that in 2011 20.2 million kids under the age of eleven will be online at least once per month. That’s just shy of 40% of this demographic. By 2014, an estimated 24.9 million, almost 48% of kids, eleven and under will be online. Since kids are tech savvy, they’re perfectly comfortable researching products and brands that interest them. They’re also susceptible to online advertising. Since these kids communicate heavily with their friends online, they then become heavy influencers.

Besides this, access to the Internet with mobile devices continues to rise. While marketing to children under the age of thirteen is not allowed, kids are being handed parents’ cell phones to play games and listen to music. As they get older and parents give them their first cell phones, these kids, having grown up on the Internet, will use these mobile devices for more than communications. They’ll be online themselves and the target of marketing.

Tweens and teens are increasingly creating their own content online, influencing a wider circle of their peers as they do. Engaging tweens and teens on all communication platforms, especially social media, is a “must”. Marketers that make the effort to connect with these groups in new, inventive ways will reap significant rewards. These demographics and their friends can become true brand devotees.

In all of these communication platforms, the marketer needs to message to engage parents, not only children.

Here are the Dos and Don’ts on how to accomplish this:

Do engage them by playing to their sense of adventure and their imaginations.
Do get the point across simply and succinctly.
Do engage them with activities that teach, educate or encourage creativity.
Do make certain your messages are truthful and authentic. Kids can spot a phony from a mile away; that will turn them off to the brand for good. Hint: they’ll take their friends with them away from the brand, also.
Do emphasize safety and wholesomeness if these are central to the brand. Always accent the positive and highlight value.
Do take responsibility. Be up front if there’s a problem and show a willingness to make things right.
Do partner with parents. They need and want reassurances. An interactive flow of communication is vital to the success of brands now.
Do set up a strategy that employs traditional and social media platforms since kids multi-task and need to be messaged with more than one medium.
Don’t talk down to the kid’s demographic you want to appeal to. Speak in their language. Better yet: show them in inventive ways. Remember: kids see themselves as more mature than they actually are.
Don’t only engage kids; engage their parents. Especially if the brand offers an opportunity to bring the entire family together. Hint: family game nights and activities have reappeared since the economic downturn. How can marketers capitalize on that?

Research shows parents are being far more selective now in their purchases for their kids. Even though cost-cutting measures are evident in households across the country brands that are perceived to have value; brands that inspire trust and loyalty; will continue to be purchased by parents when their children ask for them. Tweens will also receive their parents’ approval for these kinds of brands as they make their own purchases.

There has been a decided shift in families and a reorientation of values. More meaning is placed on the family as a unit, and to be successful, marketers will have to get connected and stay connected, engaging the modern family on its own terms.

Ted Mininni is president of Design Force Inc., a brand design consultancy to consumer product companies with Enjoyment Brands.