The Child Market

Until reading the last two articles for class, I never realized how much of today's advertising really is geared towards children. I mean of course I realize it and see it when the commercials are selling toys, but things like cars and gasoline never really came to mind. The one commercial that really caught my attention was advertising BP gasoline. I did not even realize that it actually is marketing more towards children until I saw a clip from one on the YouTube clip we watched in class. This sparked my curiosity and I came home and looked at a few more from BP. It is quite alarming to me that BP gasoline is more concerned with marketing their product to my 5 year old niece, who is years away from buying gasoline, then gearing their commercials towards someone like me who is 21 years old and purchases gas quite often. It really is amazing though that at the age of 5 and even younger than that, companies are already marketing products irrelevant to this age group as a means of building product loyalty later in life. When I was that age it seemed like the only companies marketing towards children were toy companies (i.e., Mattel and Fisher-Price) and fast food restaurants (i.e., McDonalds and Burger King). I am not really sure if all this irrelevant marketing to children will make a difference in their adult lives, but I guess I will have to wait until my niece is of driving age to see if the BP commercials rubbed off, making her a loyal customer.