What kind of signals are marketers sending to children?

Sophie the Giraffe, the most popular teething toy on the market, strikes a similar resemblance with Geoffrey.

Originally, Monopoly was built to teach players about the dangers of Ricardo’s economic theory of rents. Today, Monopoly teaches something completely different.

And don’t forget that every customer under two gets a free refill at Starbucks when they bring in their Rise and Shine sippy cup.

This begs the question: What kind of signals are marketers sending to children?

Amplifying this problem is the fact that the average person is inundated with up to 50,000 advertisements per day.

We have become numb to this noise but not without cost.

The good marketers understands the lifetime value of a customer. They’re fighting for position of tomorrow.

That’s why Volkswagon spent millions of dollars in a minute and half TV advertisements with only featuring one adult for a split second at the very end.

It’s not for twenty year olds. They have already made up their mind what kind of car they are going to drive, to signal to the rest of us what kind of person they are, what kind of story they tell.

Make no mistake about it, big companies are spending enormous amounts of cash to understand our psyches. They know our buying habits better than we do.

So, if cigarette companies are restricted in how they market to kids, why on earth do we let Mickey Mouse continue to get a pass?