Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer CultAds aimed at kids are virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at slumber parties and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Companies are enlisting children as guerrilla marketers, targeting their friends and families. Even trusted social institutions such as the Girl Scouts are teaming up with marketers. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, New York Times bestselling author and leading cultural and economic authority Juliet Schor examines how a marketing effort of vast size, scope, and effectiveness has created "commercialized children." Schor, author of The Overworked American and The Overspent American, looks at the broad implications of this strategy. Sophisticated advertising strategies convince kids that products are necessary to their social survival. Ads affect not just what they want to buy, but who they think they are and how they feel about themselves. Based on long-term analysis, Schor reverses the conventional notion of causality: it's not just that problem kids become overly involved in the values of consumerism; it's that kids who are overly involved in the values of consumerism become problem kids. In this revelatory and crucial book, Schor also provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children. Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture. |
Contents
The Content of Commercial | |
Ads Infiltrate Everyday Life | |
The Commercialization of Public Schools | |
The New Intrusive Research | |
Selling Kids on Junk Food Drugs and Violence | |
Empowered or Seduced? The Debate About Advertising and Marketing | |
Beyond Big Bird Bratz Dolls and the Back | |
Afterword | |
About the Author | |
Data Appendix | |
Notes | |
References | |
How Consumer Culture Undermines Childrens WellBeing | |
Other editions - View all
Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture Juliet Schor Limited preview - 2004 |
Born to Buy: A Groundbreaking Exposé of a Marketing Culture That Makes ... Juliet B. Schor No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
activities adults Advergaming advertising to children agencies alcohol anxiety asked become behavior Born to Buy Boston boys brand campaign candy Center cereals Channel child childhood children’s marketing clients Commercial Alert companies consumer culture consumer involvement Consumers Union cool corporate critical depression Doxley drugs Education example fast food focus groups food marketing girls Happy Meals Hasbro industry influence interviewed Juliet Schor junk food Kaiser Family Foundation KidPower kids marketing to children materials McDonald’s McNeal messages million mothers National Nickelodeon obesity parents Paul Kurnit percent play Pokémon product placement promote psychological quote responsibility schools Schor self-esteem sell snacks social soft drink spend strategy sugar survey target teachers teens Teletubbies television viewing there’s tobacco today’s toys trends tweens video games violence Viviana Zelizer watching well-being what’s York youth