Consumerism 101

I believe I was about 6 years old when I first saw the television ad that promised a square inch of land in Alaska, “Absolutely Free!”

The black and white commercial was fantastic. It showed people panning for gold and doing other cool Alaskan things. Somewhere in a crevice of my brain lurked the entrepreneur I was to become as I thought about farming my square inch. Corn, I thought, I'll grow corn! All I had to do was send the coupon that came in a Quaker Oats box to the Klondike Big Inch Land Co. and I would become a landowner.

The problem was—and this was a big problem—my mother. She was a dangerous combination of indulgent and begrudging at the same time. She would buy me the cereal knowing full well that I would never eat it. On the other hand, she couldn't let it go to waste. So at breakfast every morning she would be gagging the stuff down, and in between gags she would remind me over and over about what a pain I was because all I really wanted was the prizes. She was, of course, absolutely correct.

I always promised to eat the cereal; promised that it really wasn't about the prize; and said I loved Quaker Oats. Once again, gullible but loving mother that she was, she bought me the cereal. I remember putting it on the table, opening it up, snaking my hand down to the bottom of the box, and dragging out the coupon along with pieces of oat stuck to my arm and hand.

Well, I got my certificate—and being 6 years old, I lost it immediately. I never, however, lost the memory of farming that square inch of land. It was a brilliant marketing campaign, as literally millions of gullible kids made their mothers buy Quaker Oats in order to send in for their square inch.

I bring this up because it was the first run-in with marketing that I remember. I had certainly been taken in, but I wasn't disillusioned. I'd just learned an important lesson: Don't fall for everything you see on television. That's a lesson that has held me in good stead to this day. Any time someone on television tries to convince me to buy a car, take out a loan, or go on a vacation, I look at the TV, frown, furrow my brow and think to myself, “Hmmm, is this that square inch of land all over again?”

You may be wondering why I'm talking about something that happened when I was 6 years old. Well, it's because I am getting tired of these books that attack the toy industry for marketing to kids. We already had to listen to Eric Clark in The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for America's Youngest Consumers. Now we have Benjamin Barber's Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. Barber says that product marketing is so dominant in our culture that children are reduced to focusing their lives around shopping and brands. Mr. Clark thinks we're a ruthless bunch, and Mr. Barber thinks we are both corrupting and infantilizing.

Well, there may be a few folks in the industry who are ruthless, corrupting and infantilizing, but, frankly, I think that by marketing to kids we're actually playing an important function in children's lives. We help them learn how to survive in a country that has a free market economy, free speech and the right for someone to try to get someone else to buy pretty much whatever they have to sell.

So let me just say it: I am blatantly and unapologetically in favor of marketing to kids. Why? Because those kids are going to have to spend the rest of their lives listening to every kind of marketing approach. Childhood is when they'll learn to cope with it. The stakes are low and the knowledge is priceless. We would do them no favors by sending them into the adult world unprepared for this.

So the next time one of your customers complains that her kid was suckered for a toy that didn't work like the commercial said it would, or that breaks immediately, or that quickly becomes obsolete, remember to, of course, give them a credit or replace the toy—but don't feel guilty. Though the child is disappointed, they're learning how to get by in the real world. They're learning that the process is not always pretty to watch, but it's better than the alternative.

Advertising to children is not just a lesson in the market economy. It is also the only way we have, at least at this moment in history, to let children and their parents know about toys that match up with their interests and desires. The absence of advertising to children would definitely hurt the industry, but it would hurt children even more. (I promise more on this topic in a future column.)

By the way, I just found out that those 1-square-inch-of-land deeds are going for $40 a piece on the collector's market. Too bad I lost mine so quickly. I guess I'm still learning lessons from childhood.

Richard Gottlieb is president of Richard Gottlieb & Associates, New York, provider of business development services, and author of the book Ambassador to the Kingdom of Wal-Mart. He can be reached at richard@usatoyexpert.com.