Developing a Marketing Strategy

Children are a important audience to the marketers as they are easier to attract with certain products that companies tend to promote. Marketers tend to find it easier to get their products/service recognised within this particular sector.

In today's modern society children are treated with great care and affection, parents tend to spend time and money on them. In today's society children tend to get thing's without working for it for example, getting a job, however comparing this attitude to the olden days children they had to work and were restricted to receive certain things as there was low income and parents could not afford it. However, today the majority of people have reasonable income which enables them to afford things that their children want.

Today's children are influenced greatly by certain popular role models, for example their favourite television actor such as Hannah Montana.



Celebrities tend to influence children a lot as children look up to them and follow what they do, wear and represent, for example if Hannah Montana represented a new product the majority of her fans would purchase that product as the product has a relation with Hannah Montana. Children tend to easily get influenced by celebrities and the products they use. This benefits celebrities as this allows them to introduce their own product lines, as they know they already have an audience who will purchase it.


Factors that impact on children:

There are many factors that impact on children such as:

*Latchkey kids (working mums)
*Divorce rate/step families- this includes more grandparents and older step siblings
*Helicopter parents

There is an increase Latchkey kids. The reason for this is because children nowadays have become more independent due having an authority figure to look out for them all the time. This is due to their parents working or parent working such as working mothers. Latchkey children are children who's both parents work full-time, therefore they are given their own key to let themselves in the house as their parents will not be in the house to take care of them, for example children who come back from school will have to let themselves in the house as they will not have anyone to pick them up from school due to their parents working. Children can take advantage of this fact and use this against their parents to get what they want.



There is also a large increase in single parents and parents who remarry again, this involves families more with stepchildren, older siblings and grandparents. Single parents behaviour impacts on children as both parents will believe that they to look after the child's needs and make sure he/she receives everything that he/she wants, therefore each parent presents the child with gifts and money in order to keep the child happy.
Mintel data (pocket money 2008), shows that a majority of children are not reliant on a single source for their pocket money, as they tend to receive additional funds from other areas. This explains that children can receive additional funds from grandparents and other family members.

Another type of parents are helicopter parents or mothers. These parents tend to be very protective about their child throughout their life, even if their child is a grown ups. Solomon (2006) states that these type of parents tend to be very protective about their children as they keep close attention to their education, lifestyle and problems. Therefore, they tend to look out for the children all the time and tend to be their for them also.

Theories:

A theory which relates to marketing to children is Burner's theory. The reason for this is because Burner believes that factors such as language is important as this impacts on children's upbringing. Burner introduced three stages which related to children's growth at specific ages.

Stage 1: Enactive mode- this takes place when the child is 18 months and over. This involves the child thinking and taking action physically, therefore many children make mistakes at this age as they take action before thinking.

Stage 2: Iconic representation- this takes place from the 18 months also. This is when the child starts to store information in their memory according to sensory images.

Stage 3: Symbolic representation- this takes place from 7 years and over. This is when the child starts to store information in their memory according to symbols, therefore they start to learn things such as the alphabet and numbers.


Marketing to children:

Organisations tend to understand how and what strategies to use to gain their customers. Companies who tend to have a specific target market such as children tend use different marketing ways in order to attract children's attention towards their product such as television adverts on channels such as Disney channel and in store advertisements. Marketers tend rely on specific methods regarding certain products, for example for children they will use the strategy of Pester Power, in order to gain the customers. This method is very useful to organisations as children use their parents to spend more money on them. Therefore, when children see a product they pester their parents to purchase it for them. When children pester their parents a lot regarding the product, their parents take their demand into account and purchase the product as they do not have any choice.

Due to today's modern generation of children, there are many brands and companies that target children as their target audience, therefore children are exposed to many products that they can choose from when deciding to purchase a product. Elder children in the age range of 12 and over tend to go for more branded products, as they tend to see this as fitting into the society, for example children at secondary schools will be very conscious about what brands they wear, therefore they will purchase popular brands which will keep them popular in the school environment. This is a way to start a trend within the children's environment as one child may purchase a product and others will follow this.

Advertising Standard Authority:

The ASA have set many rules and regulations for organisations to follow when advertising to specific target audience, especially to children. Some of the rules are:

* Adverts must not take advantage of children's inexperience of their natural credulity and sense of loyalty
* To avoid arousing unrealistic expectations
* Adverts for expensive toys must include an indication of their price
* The cost must not be minimised by the use of such words as "only" and "just"

The rules stated above have to be used because these allow the children not be forced or pressured to purchase the product, the product has to appeal to the children in order for them to decide to purchase it.
Other rules also include adverts must avoid anything likely to encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children. This is very important for all children as they need to be given healthy food in schools and at home, therefore marketers tend to promote health eating in schools in order to encourage children. Also, it is important that adverts do not physically or mentally harm children in any way for example adverts should not encourage or condone children towards bullying. Overall, marketers who advertise to children have to be careful as they need to follow many rules and regulations when deciding to advertise a certain product to children.