Dr. Susan Linn conducted an interview about the pervasive marketing targeted at children. She discussed how marketing to children grew dramatically in the 1980s as regulations were loosened. Marketers now target every age group using branded products, TV shows, movies, video games, and social media to influence children. They learn advertising jingles as early words and are immersed in over 40,000 ads per year. This constant marketing undermines parents' ability to set limits and promote children's well-being over commercial interests. Dr. Linn advocates for parents to limit screen time, promote creative play over consumption, and get involved politically to protect childhood from unchecked marketing influence.

1. MATTHEW S. ROBINSON
62 Brookline Street, Needham, MA 02492
617 877 6264 / matthewsrobinson@mac.com
The following interview won a bronze medal from United Parenting Publications.
It appeared in The Boston Parents Paper and its national affiliates:
Cleanup in Aisles 1-18
Dr. Susan Linn helps parents ward off child-centered marketing
By Matthew S. Robinson
As a child psychologist, Dr. Susan Linn knows all too well the issues and difficulties facing young
people (and their parents) today. The greatest among these, she says, is the overabundance of
products and services that are specifically marketed to children. It seems that you can’t go down a
street or even a supermarket aisle without being stared at (or even stared down) by the faces of
popular characters from television, movies, and video games. And whether it’s a Barbie book bag or a
box of Spider-Man cereal, the message behind it is the same: Hey, Kid- You NEED this stuff- So you
better nag and cry until you get it!
Apparently, the message is being heard. Child marketing has grown to a $15 billion a
year industry that even has its own award - the Golden Marble! Many babies have been
heard quoting ads among their earliest words and jingles from such mega-marketers as
McDonalds (who spent $1.3 billion in advertising in 2002 alone) and Pepsico ($1.1
billion) can be heard echoing down many an elementary school hall.
So what is a parent to do? Of course we all want our children to be happy and to not
feel slighted or unloved. But can buying them things and capitulating to this growing
commercial pressure really satisfy what they really need?
As associate director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children’s Center in
Boston, Dr. Linn has taken it upon herself to do all she can to monitor and counter the
overwhelming marketing pushes that companies direct at children. In her new book,
Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood (The New Press), Dr. Linn
discusses the dilemmas involved in this immoral industry and offers suggestions to
parents regarding how they can deal with them responsibly while helping their children
to do the same.
How did you come upon this issue?
It was permeating all aspects of my life. I was raising a daughter and I was also working

2. with children. My work at the Judge Baker Center deals with helping mitigate the
negative effects of the media on children. It became clear to me in the late ‘90 s that you
couldn’t think of media any more without thinking about marketing. I just couldn’t get
away from it! I saw it with my clients and also with my own daughter. I had a four-year-
old introduce my to Brittney Spears and I found McDonalds toys in my office. I started
writing about it because of Teletubbies, which came to the U.S. from Britain in 1998. It
was marketed as a program that was educational for children for children as young as
one, even though there was no research that such young children got anything out of it.
The show came with all of these products. And that made it clear to me that it was really
a marketing ploy. The notion of encouraging babies to watch television was so
antithetical to all I had known about what was good for children that I had to do
something. I come from a whole-child philosophy, so I was able to see how children
were being inundated and effected in all aspects of their lives. And that philosophy
encouraged me to start speaking up about it.
When did child-centered marketing become so pervasive?
I would say it was the 1980s. There has always been marketing to children, but in the
‘80’s there was a change and a confluence of factors. In 1978, the FCC concluded that
it was unfair to market to children under eight because they can not understand
persuasive intent and do not have the cognitive wherewithal to defend against it. They
wanted to ban such advertising. But yielding to pressure from industry, the FCC lost
their power to regulate such advertising. In 1984, Congress deregulated children’s
television, so it became okay to develop a program for the sole purpose of selling a
product. Within a year, all of the best-selling toys were linked to some kind of program.
At the same time, electronic media began to grow, so suddenly there was cheap
technology and things like VCRs and computers began entering the home, creating
more ways for marketers to reach children and bypass parents. There were also more
single-parent families and two-parent families where both parents were working, so the
kids were often left home alone.
What age groups are most targeted and most susceptible and why?
Every age group and every segment of childhood is targeted - from babies to teenagers.
They are targeted in different ways, but they are all targeted and they are all vulnerable.
Preschool children can’t distinguish between commercials and programs and they tend
to believe what people tell them. Until the age of eight, children can’t understand that
they are being persuaded. Older kids are very susceptible to peer pressure and they
want to do things their parents don’t like, as do teens. Teens are also concerned about
their bodies and identities. It is endless! Today, the big push ins on “’Tweens.” That term
came up in the mid-‘80s thanks to latchkey children - the children who were home alone
and who were being recognized as a gold mine for marketers. The expenditures on
child-focused ads in that after-school time slot rose dramatically during those years. The
‘90s were fairly prosperous, so people had money to spend on their kids and kids began
to participate more in buying things. So every generation has had their issues. At the
moment, I worry most about toddlers and babies. So many of these kids have their own
televisions and that is just wrong! There is so much marketing geared toward babies
and many of the products are touted as being educational, even though there is no

3. research that proves they are. As a result, a generation is being raised to turn to the
screen – whether it be television or computers - to calm and soothe them. People think
that television is safe for their children – at least relative to being on the streets - but it
isn’t.
What are some of the means marketers use to reach kids?
So many items are branded for kids and all of those characters are linked to other
products, many of which are not particularly good for kids, such as sugary snacks and
fatty foods. The characters become important to them and once that connection is
made, it becomes a gold mine for marketers. For example, SpongeBob Squarepants
was Kraft’s best-selling version of the macaroni and cheese in 2002. Every show and
movie is linked to tons of products. A lot of companies also use stealth marketing and
viral marketing, in which they co-opt word of mouth or market to kids who do not even
know they are being targeted. One company called The Girls Intelligence Agency (the
GIA) uses girls pajama parties for market research. They actually film the parties to look
at consumer behavior! Proctor & Gamble has a marketing branch called Tremors that
pays teens to distribute products to their friends. Marketing is leaping off the screen and
tainting every part of children’s lives. And as the products make them cool, the kids are
susceptible. Kids come to expect to receive things when they go to parties. There are
also product placements. They are illegal in kids programs but they are legal in
programs that kids watch and in movies and video games. For example, the characters
on “Gilmore Girls” eat Pop Tarts for breakfast. All kids like “America Idol” and Coke paid
a lot of money to get the judges to drink Coke. In the game “Crazy Taxi,” the cab stops
at Pizza Hut. It’s popular with advertisers because it’s what marketers call “sticky”- The
kids stick to the game for a while and get the message over an extended period of time.
There are even games that are entirely built around products! This country is in love
with marketplace without any thought of the consequences of that- So why not exploit
children to make a profit?
Who are the biggest offenders in terms of targeting children?
Coke and Pepsi. Parents used to be able to prevent or at least discourage kids from
having soda at younger ages, but it’s now harder for parents to set limits, especially
when there are soda machines in schools. McDonalds is also a big one.
As part of your research, you went to a marketing conference at the Yale Club in
New York. What did you find there that shocked you the most and what did you
learn that helped you the most?
It was the first time I had ever been to a conference that was about children where
nobody talked about what was good for children. It never came up! And while that is not
their job, it is worrisome that people who have so much power and money and influence
over children never consider what is good for children. What children like came up a lot
- because that is what sells - but nobody reflected on the impact of Ronald McDonald
on children, other than the fact that he sells hamburgers.
How many commercials does the average child see in a year and what effect do
they have?

4. On television alone, about 40,000. But it is so much more than commercials. Most of the
programs are advertising for something and most of them also have product placements
within them. Children are bombarded with marketing from the moment they wake up in
the morning to the moment they go to bed at night and the marketing industry does
everything it can to undermine parental control. In 1998, Western Media International
did a study on nagging, They wanted children to nag their parents and they wanted to
figure out how to make it more effective. They called it the “Nag Factor.” It is my
understanding that the industry is not talking about nagging as much today, but it is still
effective. They prey on children’s natural, healthy tendencies to want to carve out a
place for themselves and differentiate themselves from their parents and, in so doing,
they make the parents come out looking mean and incompetent.
Is there any safe or sacred place left or has marketing pervaded every aspect of
life?
I think that what is happening is that there is starting to be blowback. People are starting
to fight to reclaim childhood for children. Many schools are taking the soda machines
out, for example. I work with a national coalition that works to support people who are
trying to help children, like parents who take the televisions out of their children’s rooms.
And that is a good start, but parents also need to see that it goes beyond the home. We
need to look first of all at our own vulnerabilities to marketing and to cut down on how
many televisions we own and when they are on. When we can, we need to set limits.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children watch no television until
the age of two. And that is important because, the sooner kids start, the more they will
watch and the more they will want to watch. There is no reason for babies to watch
television or to have products with the brands on them. Diapers with characters on them
lead to juice boxes with characters and they in turn lead to other junk foods and other
products children simply do not need.
What is the role of society concerning this issue?
It has always been clear to me that children are not raised in a vacuum. But I also
believe that society has an obligation to children to promote their health and well being.
And what this industry is doing – and we are letting them do it – is undermining that. As
I began to look into this and to see what the marketers themselves were saying it
became more appalling to me. Ninety percent of marketers say that kids are marketed
to in ways they do not even notice, and over half of them said there is too much
marketing to kids and that, as a result, they are nagging too much and growing up too
quickly. And that is why I wrote the book. People do not think much about marketing.
The media is such a part of our lives and marketing - especially marketing to children –
has escalated exponentially over the past 20 years. And it is still escalating, although in
different ways.
Does petitioning local or even federal government agencies work?
A lot of it begins in the home, but parents can also look to their community and to begin
to see it as a socio-political issue. We need to start looking at laws. Even in this age of
deregulation, there are currently some bills in Congress that deal with these issues.

5. There is even a bill in the works that would give the FCC the power to regulate
children’s programming again. So yes, getting involved can make a difference.
How can parents come to see that spending money does not represent love? And
how can they show their kids they love them without giving in to every material
demand?
It’s not good for children to have all of their wishes fulfilled. Loving your kids does not
mean giving in to them all the time. Life is a give and take, and children need to learn
that. One of the reasons that children have parents is because they often do not have
very good judgement and parents need to assert that judgement. Kids are told that
things will make them happy, but studies have shown that things do not make us happy.
Relationships are far more important. Telling kids that things make them happy is
antithetical to most family and religious values. Marketing is even anti-democratic
because it wants cradle-to-grave brand loyalty. It’s called “share of mind.” Marketers
want to own children because they know that if they get the kids early, they will have
them for life. So parents need to value the creative things their children do and
encourage their children in creative play and other non-media-related pursuits. Dragging
a mouse on the computer is not the same thing as painting and drawing with real art
supplies. It’s prefabricated. There is a special value to making your own things and
parents need to encourage that, because many kids now feel that what they make is not
good enough. Parents need to find time away from commercials, which often means
time away from any media. They need to do old-fashioned things that are not media- or
market-based, whether it be family sports and games or playing dress-up or whatever
they can find. Kids need time and space. Unfortunately, even places that once were
public are now becoming marketed. The aquarium in Baltimore recently partnered with
Animal Planet. So even when parents take their kids to a place that is meant to be
educational in an effort to escape television, they are being told to go back home and
watch television.
How can parents best use your book to guide and support them?
The book has a list of specific suggestions, but it also helps parents learn what is
actually happening and to take a look at the marketing in their lives. Most people who
read it are shocked at the depth and breadth of marketing in their children’s lives. So I
hope people use it to educate themselves and to find out they are not alone and to use
it as a springboard to talk to other people and to get involved with the groups listed in
the back and to start addressing it in the home and in the community.
What else can be done?
We need to raise children who think. We do not need to raise brand-loyal children. We
also need to get outraged. It is outrageous that Chem-lawn uses the mailing list from the
United States Youth Soccer Association or that Coke gave a grant to the American
Academy of Pediatric Dentistry! Kids pay for advertising not only with their money (or
their parents’ money), but also with their health and well-being. Parents also need to
think about what they are putting in front of their babies. Sesame Street may be
educational, but it is now also linked to junk foods, including a partnership with
McDonalds. It’s no longer a question of whether the content is beneficial. We now have

6. to think of who else is involved and what that means. Especially with child obesity such
a problem these days, we need to ask if the total package is good for children, not just
the program itself. Advertising isn’t free. It has a HUGE cost!