The Awful Truth About Television: Why kids NAG by Katherine Westphal

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The Awful Truth About Television: Why kids NAG
by Katherine Westphal

Viewers log in 50,000 commercials per year

Commercials are another significant problem with TV watching. Viewer’s pocketbooks are the primary victim. The average person who logs in 4½ hours of TV per day also tunes in to more than 50,000 commercials per year. Even if adults can resist the manipulative marketing tactics, children do not have the ability to discern fact from fiction from cheap advertising.

Marketers target children and teach them to nag

Worse, during each of those cute commercials, your children are facing an army of ruthless marketers who want to teach and encourage your child to nag for their products until you purchase them. The marketing term is the “Nag Factor”, or how many sales companies can make from kids who beg, plead, and yes. . .NAG their parents.

Once upon a time, society viewed children as precious beings that parents and society needed to protect until they learned to navigate in the larger world. Today TV marketers literally look upon your kids as cash cows. Take heed of the words of one of the gurus of this trend, James McNeal: “With all their purchases ahead of them, and with their ability to pull their parents along, children are the brightest star in the consumer constellation.”

McNeal sees three separate markets in children. There is the primary market—children’s allowances, part-time jobs, and other direct income. There is the influence (read ‘nagging’) market in which children “pull their parents along” to purchase goods and services. Then there is the future market, which envisions customers who are branded for life.

Alternatively, consider the words of Cheryl Idell, a pioneer in teaching kids how to nag:

Author's Biography:

Katherine Westphal, founder of TrashYourTV.com, is the guru of TV control. Get in control of your life by first getting in control of your TV. Go to http://tvfree.trashyourtv.com to start your new life away from your TV.

Posted on: June 12,2006

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