Comments on: Laughing at Advertising

By: rebecca

rebecca — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:31:01 +0000

I started with my 3 yr old with a discussion about marketing and how people will put, for example, Hello Kitty, on something so that you think that you need it. But really you don’t need it, you only like it b/c it has Hello Kitty on it. And it’s all because they want your money.

Now at 4 she’ll see branded things and say “That’s marketing mommy. I don’t want to buy that.” And then every once in a while she’ll say “I want that even tho it’s marketing”. She’s honestly beginning to see the difference between wanting something because she likes/needs it and wanting something only because it has a certain theme/brand.

I think it’s a valuable thing to teach a young child regardless of how you teach it. I kinda like the idea of laughing at commercials tho!

By: Henry Zonio

Henry Zonio — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:41:19 +0000

Maybe I’m just overly critical, but that method seems a bit too contrived.

What I do with my kids (notice how I smoothly transition into what I think is better) is to beat them at saying, “I want that.”

A Barbie commercial comes on, and I chime in quickly, “I want that!” A Tranformers commercial comes on… “I want that.” It more indirectly has shown my children the silliness of wanting whatever is advertised. Plus it annoys my children (in a fun and playful way), which is always a bonus

By: Chris Goringe

Chris Goringe — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:27:20 +0000

Nice. We started very young with our son along similar lines; the family response to adverts is to say, in unison, “no, advert, we don’t need that!”.

Then again, the day that Veggie Tales has adverts it in is the day to stop watching live TV.