Assessing the evolution of virtual marketing activities targeting children.
Cosoi, Carmen Maria ; Anghel, Laurentiu Dan
1. INTRODUCTION
Children have always been like a sponge when it comes to retaining
everything that is happening around them, but these days their
playground of information has changed considerably. If not long ago, and
we are referring to recent period, like the fast 5 years, we could still
have stronger control over the type of information available to our
children, now the situation is completely different. The new approach of
360 degrees marketing is becoming more popular and so the effect is
skyrocketing. In the past it used to be enough to turn off the TV in
order to avoid the exposure to undesired information, such as
advertising for alcohol, tobacco and so on. But with technical
evolution, come a series of inconveniences and a lot of "grey
area" where no rules apply. One of the most important changes which
have occurred in the recent years is the unrestricted and almost
unlimited access to Internet of our children.
We might say that we can combat this phenomenon by using parent
control techniques, applying strict supervision, but still the amount of
information, either marketing information or not, directed toward
children it is beyond our control for most of the cases.
The Internet is a mirage for many, which can easily sweep them
away, especially children. Although an unlimited source of very useful
and insightful information, the Internet also comes with challenges
which should not be ignored especially by parents. Since children
nowadays are extremely eager to accumulate as much information as
possible, Internet is their new playground.
New threats in the 21th century are the social networks along with
blogs, a phenomenon which has exploded in the past years. This comes in
addition to the preexisting situation determined by chats, sites with
adult content only, violence, drugs, alcohol and tobacco, to name just a
few. And even if we are not talking about life threatening aspects, we
are still facing a major problem: Internet addiction, which might not
even be a recognizable issue for many of the parents. Children start
spending time in front of the computer from the early stage of their
life, at first even being encouraged by their parents, who are delighted
with the progresses made by their little ones, but little do we know
that all the marketing information received conscious or not will end up
shaping part of their behavior.
2. OVERVIEW OF THE ROMANIAN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
A study conducted in April 2008 by UNESCO and Romtelecom ***, (the
study was conducted in the main cities in Romania among 3000 students
age 7-15 years old), one of the main players on the communication
market, revealed that most of the children surf the web unsupervised and
by this we mean both direct supervision or parental control techniques.
Also, almost half of them, 45% have transmitted personal information
about them via web. On the other hand, another study conducted in the
same period, but addressed to parents, revealed that only 8% of the
parents stated that their children have posted personal information on
websites (the study was conducted online with 300 respondents on the web
site www.itsybitsy.ro, a radio for children)
Children do make the best of their liberty of navigating the
Internet, recent statistics from the top ranking site*** in Romania
(www.trafic.ro) in March 2009 showing that the top visited site for
children entertainment scores number 10 among the sites with the highest
traffic, and also a high Google PR.
Children, the new consumers of our era, are moving along with the
industry and the Internet is there to accommodate them. Since the
virtual environment has a long way to go, parents and educators have not
yet begun to comprehend to the full extent the massive impact the
Internet has on children's behaviour and way of thinking.
The society is merely preoccupied with restricting or avoiding
exposure to taboo subjects for children, such as sex, drugs, violence,
tobacco, alcohol, and this process is still in the early stage, etc.
The attention being directed towards these life threatening
experiences, marketing and communication techniques, especially those
practised over the Internet do escape our attention, although they are
constantly increasing and their fully effects are yet to be established.
3. COMPARATIVE RESEARCH
Over the last period of time, the Internet has become like a second
life for many of us, so did the companies made it their market place in
order to reflect as accurate as possible the real consumer experience.
If this is the case for random users, in the case of organizations,
a growing number of companies are utilizing social media monitoring and
analysis tools to derive actionable insights in support of their product
marketing, consumer support, and new product development activities. One
of industries with the highest spend on promotion directed towards
children is the food industry, which spends $2 billion per year on
promotions, especially for sugared cereals and high-calory snacks.
(Reece et al., 1999)
If in the late Forties and early Fifties, big cereal producers in
United States made some efforts of advertising their food in these days
when advertisements in children's comic books were still absent by
distributed some Disney comic books on their own, nowadays the situation
is completely different.
Nowadays the top leading cereals brand in US use an impressive
variety of means to promote and increase exposure for its products. We
will briefly present the repertoire of marketing activities of the
leading brand of sugared cereals in US, Kellogg's, all the
activities being especially designed for their children consumers: TV
commercials; product placement in movies/cartoons such as kung-fu-panda,
Indiana-Jones, Star Trek; collaboration with Walt Disney World for
sponsorship and specially displays and activities in the famous
amusement park; sponsoring children books- bed time stories; offering
promotional materials; special discounts, free gifts.
On the official Kellogg's website*** in March 2009, the
following marketing activities were available to the public:
The majority of its 7 promotions presented above, include a virtual
component, either an online interactive game or a form which needs to be
completed and send to an email address in order to receive a free gift
or enter the campaign, along the "must" online community of
Kellogg's fans.
This is only a small part of the world in which the children of the
21'st century live and mature. Their world is completely different
to that of their parents and even compared to that of their older
brothers or sisters.
Although the Romanian scenery does not yet resemble with the
picture presented above, it is an illustration of the future, since the
market is developing rapidly towards that direction, the 360 marketing
targeting the new generation of consumers.
On the Romanian cereal market, the top brands Nesquick and
Chocapic, both produced by Nestle chose also to integrate virtual
component into their marketing campaigns targeting children such as
dedicated websites with online communities, online games, suggestions
for spending free time, offer stickers, personalized logos, screen
savers and the possibility to send e- card to friends. And along all
this, you can find toys from the latest animates movie inside the box of
your favorite cereal brand. Learning from the positive experience of
Western economies, Romanian marketers put all the efforts in delivering
a complete experience to children consumers.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
4. CONCLUSION
For the years to come, the marketing actions in the Romanian
business perimeter directed towards children will proliferate even more,
reaching the level from Western countries. The potential of this new
emerging segment of consumers will drive further the innovation in
communication techniques, especially for the online environment. This
direction draws along a series of aspects, which need to be considered
and addressed accordingly: the quantity and quality of time spent online
by the children and most of all the impact of the messages received.
Although the Internet is a valuable resource, as previously stated,
implies caution in case of children. Adult supervision along with
parental control techniques are meant to diminish the potential damages
of uncontrolled exposure to stimuli over the Internet, including
promotional messages and other marketing activities. The current
research provides only a preview regarding the way Internet is
successfully incorporated in marketing activities targeting children,
but without providing answers regarding the actual level of influence,
leaving the room for further research meant to establish the degree of
influence exercised by this type messages coming from the online
environment to our children and how we can control this process in the
future. The basic idea we would like to convey is that it is essential
to acknowledge the fact that we should not underestimate the combination
of brilliant marketing minds with the power offered by Internet,
combination which will result in shaping tomorrow's consumers, our
children from an early stage. Today, ones attention should not only be
directed towards protecting the children from Internet exposure to taboo
subjects such as alcohol, drugs, sex, violence, but also focus on the
impact of apparently harmless marketing activities on the behavior and
emotional development of today's children.
5. REFERENCES
Coffey, T.; Siegal, D. & Livingston, G. (2006). Marketing to
the new super consumer. Mom & Kids, Paramount Market Publishing
Inc., ISBN 978-0-9766973-2-9,Ithaca, NY
Reece BB, Rifon NJ, & Rodriguez K. (1999) Selling food to
children: is fun part of a balanced breakfast? In: Macklin MC, Carlson
L,eds. Advertising to Children: Concepts and Controversies. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage
*** (2000) http://www.trafic.ro--Statistics and web ranking,
Accessed on:2009-03-29
*** (2006) http://www2.kelloggs.com/Promotion--Official
Kellogg's site, section promotions Accessed on:2009-03-29
*** (2008) http://www.sitemon.ro--Statistics and web ranking,
Accessed on:2009-04-25
*** (2008) http://www.nesquik-club.com/ro/--Official site for
Nesquik cereals from Nestle for Romania, Acc: 2009-04-25
*** (2008) http://www.chocapic.com/ ro/--Official site for Chocapic
cereals for Romania, Accessed on: 2009-04-25
*** (2009) www.internetsigur.ro Official site for Internet
education developed by Romtelecom and The National Association for
Consumer Protection Accessed on: 2009-04-25
*** (2009) www.itsybitsy.ro, the top Romanian radio dedicated to
children Accessed on: 2009-04-25
Tab. 1. Ranking for Romanian sites addressed to children
Site Google PR Visits Rank in Rank
categ.
www.clopot 5 3.924.433 1 10
el.ro
www.cartoo 5 598.062 2 195
nnetwork.ro
www.jocuri 4 1.113.020 3 85
-barbie.ro
www.kidsg 3 874.093 4 108
ames247.com
Tab. 2. Type of promotions offered by Kellogg's US
Promotion type Promotion name
Free in a box Kellogg's[TM] Mini Pals
promotion
On the internet Kellogg's[TM] Earn Your Stripes[TM] Gold
Soccer Ball Offer
Kellogg's Frosted Flakes[TM] Earn Yours
Stripes[TM] Codes and Wristband at
FrostedFlakes.com
Online games http://www.kelloggs.com/promotions/bar
bie-hotwheels/
Other Kellogg's[TM] Indiana Jones[TM] Raiders
DVD cereal mail-in offer
Kellogg's[TM] Guitar Hero[TM] Cereal T-
Shirt Offer
Kellogg's[TM] Indiana Jones[TM] Search
Light cereal offer
Kellogg's[TM] Heart Strong Bowl Offer
