PersuasYouthology

PersuasYouthology By Alan Forrest Smith I have 4 kids. I love them all to bits. One verges on genius and is an artist but he can't see it. The other is a gentle giant packed and overflowing with love. The other is a punk and looks like he has just been with his band. The other is a crazy non conformist with only 10 years of life behind her. They are all just kids, my kids. Lily my 10 year old, nonconformist said to me. "Dad my friend has just got a new iPhone and some new latest Ugg boots and a new wafer thin mac laptop and a new iPod and some new outfits and is now getting a new guitar" Hmmm I thought. Because I don't know about you but when I was 10 years old I was climbing trees, building bikes and digging dens at the side of the old railway! But you see in a quest for more, more, more and more sales the penetration from advertisers into the youth market is going at full pace! Just the other day looking into my 10 year old daughters school bag I found an small pencil case from a computer hardware company with a huge logo on the side of it. I asked Lily where it had come from. She told me the teacher gave all of the kids one. That led me to ask myself the question... "who gave them to the teacher?" "what was the teacher getting from the company to place them into 10 year old schoolbags?" As advertisers we might not feel the logo is everything. But at the same time that brings on another issue and question which is ... "why are these big companies willing to spend so much time and cash designing and placing their logos into the public domain? The answer is obvious of course. The younger we place images, pictures, words, logos, experiences into the minds of young people the more likely they are to stick. I can still remember all of those old tag lines from being a kid. " A Mars a day helps you .... " "a finger of fudge is just enough to ..." "they came in search of paradise and found it in ..." Did you remember them? Even if you didn't don't tell me you don't know what the BIG golden M stands for? Yet when you really think about this in our hyper-speed consumer society as it is now ... Do iPhones really enhance the life of a 10 year old? Will branded labels and clothing make them into better adults? Will feeding the constant desire for endless fatty, body expanding foods create healthy young people? Yet advertisers all over the globe appear to be pushing with the force of a tsunami at a younger and younger target audience knowing that when they grow up their brains will have been embedded with THEIR CRAP! Is there a lesson in this? I believe their is. I am responsible for protecting my kids for this kind of advertising. However as an advertiser can I be honest enough with myself to openly say my advertising is completely clear and integrity based to the point that I am only giving buyers what they actually need NOT what I want to sell them? Here's a crazy question. Do you know exactly how a massive tree or any tree gets the water from the ground to the very last leaf at the top? If you answered no and you have kids ... the likely hood is they won't know either. Go find out, share with your son or daughter, give them something of real value, a small bit of their planet. Anyway I'm rambling now. I'll go to bed tonight and think about that. Will you? I’d love your comment on this. Go to my blog right now and let me know. It’s here… www.AlanForrestSmith.com/blog Don’t forget to add your website to the comment. This blog gets a lot of traffic. I’d love to send some your way. Regards, Alan Forrest Smith http://www.OrangeBeetle.com http://www.OrangeBeetleFamily.com http://www.BecomeaCopywriter.co.uk http://www.AlanForrestSmith.com/blog http://www.OrangeBeetle.com/blog http://www.SalonPunk.com