When we look at the images in books, television, and movies, we see that even the youngest girls are barraged with a message of the near-orgasmic pleasure of shopping. But shopping and an endless desire to consume are shamelessly marketed through toys, TV shows, movies, magazines, and Web sites so that girls are brainwashed into believing that shopping is for real girls. For the 2004 holiday season alone, Susan Linn reported in Consuming Kids,"Mattel produced at least seven Barbie play sets with a shopping theme." Girls and shopping is a persistent theme for marketers, and for obvious reasons. Hook girls early on the pleasures of shopping, and the rest is a marketer's dream.
Fostering the connection between mothers and daughters through shopping is the obvious emotional link for moms. Share an afternoon together, shop, go to the spa, have lunch, and talk girl talk. The unexpected ultimate marketer's wonder, Neopets, got me hooked at age twelve. Kids from around the world are invited into the free site to create and then care for their virtual pets. Neopets is actually a sophisticated marketing scheme disguised as virtual pet care. The object of the game is to gain Neopoints by playing product-placement games or by watching commercials and movies trailers and visiting the Web sites of their sponsors. You can buy food for your pet (such as McDonald's fries; no wonder their happy meal toys in the summer of 2004 were Neopets) and then keep its teeth from falling out with a Crest spinbrush. This displays a message for kids, specifically twelve or younger, to consume. These are products they can use as well, and thus kids connect emotionally with their Neopets.
For future generations, if society wants girls to learn how to live right and if in the real world there is concern about environmental depletion, poverty and overconsumption, why don't we see more toys that teach creative versions of reduce, reuse, and recycle rather than that play against the girls-as-superficial-shopper stereotype?
Steph,
ReplyDeleteYou bring really interesting ideas throughout your blog. It seems like often as children get older, parents worry about how naive their kids can be with money. However, if parents continue to take kids shopping, and set the example that a bonding day is a day of shopping and spending money, what can they expect. I really like your point at the end of this blog. If parents are so concerned with consumerism, why aren't more people making environmentalist barbie, or toys whose sales go to charities?
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI agree, parents in many ways, encourage this consumer behavior. The authors did point out to readers, specifically parents, that this is one of many ways children consume at very young ages. I remember being in 6th grade and needing the "Snow Bunny" tee from Limited Too. At that young of an age, I loved to shop. This is why the book has been so interesting to read. And I have yet to figure out as to why there isn't environmentalist Barbie, but I do believe that it will happen, eventually!