(The Philippine Star) Updated October 22, 2011
Martin Lindstrom, the premier brand marketing guru,
conducts whole-day seminars that charge an arm and a leg. I’m fortunate
enough to have watched a presentation of his a few years ago in
Singapore, and another one just last year in New York.
This year was a real treat for me – I shared the speaker’s platform
with him! I did the “front act” of his Buy-ology seminar here in Manila.
Kind and unassuming, Martin has dedicated his life studying brand and consumer behavior. This is pretty evident in his book Buy-ology which has sold very well. And his new book Brandwashed presents such compelling information and ideas, I’m left disturbed.
I conduct parenting seminars. I’ve been doing it for years, and I’m still doing it today. Every time a school invites me for one, I always give time for it. It’s that important. So let me share with you a few excerpts from Brandwashed
to show you what some businesses are doing to our kids these days,
particularly our daughters. I’m encouraging you to get a copy, yes, and
at the same time, I hope that what you’ll read below would impact how
you raise your daughters and even sons in this consumer-driven world of
ours.
Young girls are first brand users, the book states.
According to NPD Group, a consumer research
company, from 2007 to 2009, the percentage of girls aged eight to 12
who regularly use mascara and eyeliner nearly doubled. Mascara “tween”
users rose from 10 peercent to 18 percent, while eyeliner “tween” users,
from nine percent to 15 percent.
Journalist Peggy Orenstein in her recent book Cinderella Ate My Daughter
said that close to half of six- to nine-year-old girls regularly use
lipstick and lip gloss. And tween girls spend more than $40 million a
month on beauty products.
A high-end confectionery store in New York’s Upper East Side offers a
beauty line that includes Cupcake Body Lotion and Strawberry Licorice
Lipstick. The company says on its web site, “Lips should always be
candy-luscious and sweet to kiss!”
One hair removal brand has released products that are targeting 10- to 15-year-olds, whom they call “first-time hair removers”.
Huntington Press reports, “A world-famous garments brand catering to
the young has begun marketing and selling padded bikini tops to girls as
young as eight. Bloggers on Babble.comthe eye and everything else. How is that OK for second graders? In my book, it isn’t!” amply pointed out, “The
push-up bra is effectively a sex tool. Designed to push the breast up
and out, putting them front and center where they can be more accessible
to
Meanwhile, Tesco, an England retailer, introduced a toy in 2006: The
Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit. It’s a pole dancing play set to help girls
under 10 to “unleash the Sex Kitten inside them”. Outraged parents lobby
to remove the product from shelves. I don’t blame them.
Still wonder why teen pregnancy is prevalent? Still wonder why girls are getting to be more aggressive these days?
Call me old-fashioned, but I still stick to my conservative stand on
starting children young in Biblical values.
I’ve done so with my kids,
raise them up according to the advice of Scriptures. Today, my grown-up
son and daughters are achievers, productive, polite, obedient and
positively optimistic about life.
I know that business is business, but business that exploits young consumers is not the kind of business one can be proud of.
Start your kids young in the Bible, not in brands. You’ll never regret it.
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