Even before children are old enough to speak or read, they see pictures and hear jingles that can shape what they want to wear, eat and play with. Through these and other campaigns targeting the youngest consumers, companies are building relationships with the wealthiest generation of American children ever. Social scientists and child advocates say that marketing to children manipulates the defenseless.
Marketers say kids are people, too, and deserve the same attention as any other consumer.
Meanwhile, parents are left to figure out how to guide their children through a commercial culture. It's a jagged battle line that often pushes its way into public discussion, most recently in September, when entertainment industry leaders testified before a Senate committee about marketing violence to children. We're mainly valuing them as consumers. Marketing surrounds children. They absorb it through television, billboards, the Internet and corporate-sponsored products in schools.