Does this make sense ?? Marketing to youth

Under-aged marketing is a cheap tactic to get kids to ask their parents either for money or for products regarding the advertisement they previously saw.

For the rest of these paragraphs let me get something clear when I use the words "kid" or "children," I am referring to any individual under the age of thirteen. I recognize this may be prejudice but it is generally considered that after the age of thirteen you are no longer a child; instead, a youth or a teenager.

The reasons I have boldly claimed that "under-aged marketing is a cheap tactic," is quite apparent and obvious when you put this under the imaginary common-sense microscope; let me elaborate. I will state the main points and then we can more closely examine them under this microscope

My statements:

"Kids don't have enough life experience to determine whether an ad or promotion is misleading."

"Kids generally do not have much disposable income, or income to speak of"

"Kids are used as a middle ground between marketing teams and their parent's money"

So, let's break this down; the first statement, what this is trying to mean is that kids have, unlike adults, not had enough life experience to determine whether a product is trustworthy. From prior experience most adults should be able to tell if a product is trustworthy, if the product is of enough quality, and even chose between products; consider diminishing returns (the concept that after a certain price products do not get better.) Kids lack this skill because they have simply not had enough life experience. Obviously, there can be exceptions to this, kids can have had enough experience, and there are adults that may not have enough experience to decern with this judgment; but to make it simple it is more or less universally accepted that people over the age of thirteen may already possess most or at least a bit of this judgment.

The second statement, this statement refers to how for many reasons, child labor laws included, children even over the age of thirteen may not be able to have a job. What this means is that children do not have a steady income of their own.

The second statement and the third statement fall under the same category and have the same finality; getting to the parents' wallet. This is usually the most controversial part of a subject like this, in the end, all that the marketing teams want is their money, they don't care how they get. If kids don't have money where can they get it from, the answer to that question is their parents.

So, in all this what the marketing teams are doing is getting to the parent's wallets. In doing so they are using their kids as a medium, if you will get to whom the ads were initially intended to get money from the parents.

All of this happens because children cannot differentiate between products. Saving the explanation from paragraph four, children do not have sufficient life experience for this, making them rely on their parents or other people, and use their parent’s money to buy them the product.

Some people might argue that all this just gives children more say in everything and allows them to see more of their choices. While to a certain extent this may be correct, yet again, children cannot properly and sufficiently decide for themselves what is best. Let me give a simple unconventional example. Little jimmy is innocently on the computer, watching his toy unboxing videos; when suddenly a mid-roll ad (advertisement in the middle of a video) starts to play. Jimmy is four years old and knows how to press the skip ad button but is suddenly entranced by an ad about cereal. This cereal claims to be the best serial in town, and that it tastes amazing. Little Jimmy had never heard about this brand but because the brand spent millions of dollars promoting it on various sites, it got to little jimmy who wanted nothing to do with cereal, to begin with. Little Jimmy thinks nothing of it, but it has not been forgotten. Next time little Jimmy goes to the supermarket with his dad, Big jimmy, for comedic effect. Big Jimmy and little Jimmy finally arrive at the cereal aisle, and little Jimmy recalls to his dad the ad he saw, claiming, “I WANT THAT CEREAL;” at this point, the ad has done its job. It got big Jimmy to buy his son the box of cereal that cost ten times as much just because it had a mascot and a catchy name; the cereal didn’t even taste that good, but they bought it. That my friend is how advertisements work, kids do not ponder upon such egregious things.

So, after this long-winded real-world example, it just goes to show you that people that think advertisements will broaden children’s spectrum and opinions on various products, it does not; whatsoever. It just makes the company more money; because more people buy.

In conclusion, children do not have enough real-world prowess to adequately choose for themselves (with some exceptions) what product is better, they will go directly to the one most advertised.