LOGO

With the summer so tantalisingly close, the sounds of children playing in the street have returned; balls bouncing, running and screaming, and, as I witnessed at a Royal Wedding weekend street party the other day, a new breed of game where over-excited kids skid along the road on rectangles of torn cardboard – I don’t think it’ll catch on.

At times like that, there are only a few things that can distract a child: one is the sound of a parent’s calling voice, and the other is the Pied Piper-like musical chimes of an Ice Cream Van, which, like a whistle to a dog, instantly commands the attention of any child of a certain age. Saying that, it still affects big kids too, as when my colleagues and I pricked up our ears, and exchanged cross-office glances of ice cream excitement recently Disappointingly though, our post-Easter waistlines prevailed.

And so I turn my typing fingers to Children’s marketing and advertising.

It’s a contentious issue that from country to country sees varying regulations. In Sweden, for example, all advertising to children under 12 is banned, whilst in the UK, there’s a total ban on junk food advertising around children’s television programming. Plus legislation commands that all other types of ad campaign should not directly exhort minors to buy a product or service by exploiting their credulity, or encourage them to persuade their parents to purchase – otherwise known as ‘pester power’.

And the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is on the warpath. Like back in March when The Sun allegedly encouraged children to buy its newspapers in order to collect football trading cards, resulting in its adverts being banned.

One of the main challenges for advertisers/marketers is to work with (or find a way around) the legislation. After all, for so many products, children are the key or only audience. And let’s face it, children do need toys, books, computers, drawing materials, music, etc to learn and develop. And with it, according to Childwise, children have a UK buying power of £4 billion pounds a year and assert an influence of over 10 times that.

So how can marketers get to them? Young people are becoming computer and Internet literate earlier, and brands’ use of social media activations and websites with cartoon characters and games serve as an editorial content loophole rather than raw advertising.

Another marketing pursuit is to aim at Family. When public concern arose that The Sun was irresponsible in promoting itself to children due to the unsuitability of its content, The Sun responded that it is in fact a family paper… with which ASA then agreed. The adverts were in fact banned because they exhorted children to buy the The Sun in order to obtain football cards.

However, adults as part of a family unit can be exhorted, and this removes concern for advertisers in their requirement to diminish child ‘pester power’. Take Pizza Hut’s current offer: “Kids eat free, all day, everyday”. Great for money-saving parents, but once the kids are in the restaurant they’ll no doubt be pestering their parents to spend a few extra pounds on the un-included Unlimited Ice Cream Factory. Entertainment places like Chessington World of Adventures have an easier ride (excuse the pun), as most parents genuinely want to take their children on fun days out – again, it’s all about the kids.

The launch of the film ‘Up’ in the UK was marked by a fantastic PR stunt: a house seemingly lifted by thousands of balloons, hovering above a boat that sailed through Tower Bridge. Whilst a kids’ film at heart, it wasn’t the children that saw the photo on the front of the Evening Standard on the tube home from work. It seems that marketers are marketing to adults to get to the heart of the family unit: the children. And an interesting way to do that is to feed the adult’s inner child of curiosity and imagination, and it works.

But whilst marketers have had to adapt their approach, the Ice Cream Van continues thriving with its archaic form of sonic branding, designed to delight children’s ears and trigger a parent’s pocket rummage for spare change. It’d be a shame if the Ice Cream Van ever came under fire from a junk food ad ban – for me, it should always have a place on the soundtrack to the Great British summer.

Brand Regard is an online digital asset management solution that makes it easy to organise, find and share your marketing material. You can get started with a 30-day free trial in under 5 minutes.