WEEK 20

PESTER POWER

Children have a big influence in alot of family aspects now a days. Looking at the kids grow older younger it shows how children do get teased by not having the right brand with the things they may use or wear. They are very aware of the poppular brands coming out and as they grow they have more influence on how they think and what they want. In the marketing world the Marketing companies are probing very deep in understanding parents and children to better understand their needs. With some motherswho are independant or in most cases single mothers, they want their kids to grow up. Where as with aggressive mothers they want to protect their kids and that is why marketers will advertise independant kids in order to attract aggressive mothers. Take for example if marketers show clever kids using the internet then most parents will sign up for the internet.
Mass Marketing which is also known as mass demand creates more jobs. The downside to this is that children get more aware of these brands and want more. Kids have a massive influence on parents shopping behaviour as they grow older they have more demands and that affects what parents are buying for the household. Having looked at some families it shows that boys have more demands of brands that girls when it comes to clothing.

Looking at pocket money, kids may use strategies to get what they want at times for example they may offer to give in most of their pocket money when they want something parents don't agree to, this is because they know that it won't happen and they will end up getting both. Parents main priorities have become the wants and needs of their children. Children are now adapting to adult lifestyles which makes them want to spend their money on what they want. The amount of pocket money given to children has dropped alot recently. Due to the increase in healthy lifestyle the sale of things like crisps have dropped alot together with the amount of sales being made on them. As the new economy is growing it is changing childrens expense together with it. There is alot of difference in what younger children may want and what older children may want. Older children are more interested in brands and things like computers, playstation e.t.c. Where as younger children are more interested in wanting electronic toys and not just the batman or power rangers teddies kids may want electronic dolls or cars with wireless remotes.

Looking at Piagets child developement theory it states that children cannot be known as little adults until they reach the age of 15. This is according to Jean Piaget who is a developemental biologist who devoted his life to closely observe, infants, children and adults.
The plan that has been put in place by Piaget is mostly connected to brain developement. He states that the human brain is not completely developed until the late adolescence and in the case of males it may be early adulthood. Parents need to know that when their children are developing they will see a lot of changes in their behaviour and parents need to be realistic with what they expect from their children.

The Piagets stages of cognitive development

1- SENSORY MOTOR PERIOD (0-24 Months) - In this stage kids start to sense things where they move hands or legs to sensing things, moving things around and trying to explain through doing things like moving objects.

2- THE PREOPERATIONAL PERIOD (2-7 Years) - In this stage kids start to use verbal language and can sense objects without them being infront of them. Language developes through this stage and get a bit more clearer but not completely. They may still tend to focus on one object and ignoring the rest.

3- PERIOD OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS (7-11 Years) - In this stage they may have organized and logical thinking, they may be capable of dealing with more than one object and may also be capable of problem solving.

4- PERIOD OF FORMAL OPERATIONS (11-15 Years) - In this stage thinking becomes more formal and one does not have to put in alot of effort in thinking. Can handle algebra, manupilations and other processes as well.

Here is an interesting video about children developement.

Pester Power has been defined by the director general of the advertising association as 'a pejorative term for children making requests of their parents' (Brown 2004).

Advertisers who target children through their marketing promotions can cause arguments between children and parents which can mostly result in purchases against parents judgement. Advertisers also promt purchases of things that are not good for children but they insist on having.

Pester power is assumed to work by the influence that they have over purchasing through someone else. There is a confusion between childlike adults and sophisticated children in major markets like music and games. One of the main reason for this is the involvement of parents in buying their kids these products as most of them cannot be purchased by underaged children. This is a basic mechanism of pester power. Children tend to have influence on things like leisure, cinemas and holidays. According to some researchers after looking at thomas cook, children have different priorities that parents but they may have most influence on the type of holiday where as the parents may focus more on the hotel and flight informations, But overall kids do have the influence on these purchases. Looking at another study it shows that children normally like to socialize their parents into eating healthy food habits learned at school. In most studies it shows that consumers think that pester power is a very uncomfortable reality and causes problems in their family. Children and parents are targeted everyday by marketing companies. Children get attracted to the products and nag their parents again and again until they end up buying the product even when they do not want to. It is all about the purchase behaviour in most cases than it is about money. Looking at some studies it shows that parents from middle class families tend to say i buy them what they want rather than parents from a higher classed family.

This is also a video i found which shows how much influence kids have looking at what their parents do and try to copy them and develope into more adult likely.