Marketers plug into pester power to target parents
YOU only have to look at the success of the electronic games market to understand the importance of kids’ influence on their parents’ spending.
Last year games marketers, dominated by the likes of Sony, Nintendo and most recently Microsoft, made more money than the film industry.
With the success of markets such as these, kids’ products are today recognised as being big business, and the role children play in purchasing decisions has similarly increased in importance to marketers.
The marketing phrase to describe kids’ influence in purchasing is “pester power”; an influence that works on a number of levels, says Ingenuity Research MD Matt Balogh.
“A quarter of parents in their thirties take their children shopping with them and more than half of this age group take their kids shopping with them at least every second time, so there is a big opportunity for kids to influence brand choices there.”
Ingenuity Research’s “Australians Today Consumer Insights” report is based on interviews with Australian kids aged six to 13 and their parents. This year the report stated kids are most likely to influence the buying of snack foods: chips (56% of parents agreed), biscuits (48%) and other savoury snacks.
Almost 30% of parents also said they buy the toothpaste their kids choose and 44% will buy a brand of spread, such as peanut butter, their children select.
But whether kids want a particular brand of peanut butter, or the latest game release, Einsteinz Toy Box MD Steve Quinlan says pester power is as much about the environment children are brought up in, as the kind of advertising to which they are exposed.
He says it should not surprise anyone that kids will throw groceries into a shopping trolley, considering they have watched their parents and other shoppers do just that since their first trip to the supermarket.
“Pester power doesn’t just come from the children—they are being influenced by their parents and their environment, and from a marketing and advertising viewpoint, if you are tapping into that, the result will be children pestering. From a marketing perspective, that’s a powerful tool.”
While he agrees that “accessing” this influence can be a powerful tool for marketers, McCann-Ericsson strategic planning director Richard Sauerman says pester power is a derogatory term.
“If you want to call it pester power you can, but I think kids know what they want and they express that, and if that’s pester power, well then that’s pester power.”
Sauerman says marketing aimed at children should not be interpreted as a means of forcing kids to drive their parents crazy to buy them a particular product—it is not brainwashing, he says.
“People say kids get sucked in by marketing, but I reckon it is the adults that get sucked in. I think kids are onto it. Sure there will be trends and fads and things that kids get excited about, but that’s the same as anybody, we all have our cravings. It’s just basic marketing—you have to make a product appeal to kids.”
Otherwise your product will end up on the toy scrap heap, and Sauerman says there is a pile of unused Lego at his house to prove it.
“Lego went out on a whole education thing targeting parents, but the magic of Lego for kids was not pushed and promoted. You have got to make the kids want what you are selling.”
The same rules can apply to fast-moving consumer goods where kids might have a say in the choice of a particular product.
“We do a lot of fast-moving consumer goods such as cereal and ice cream, and the wisdom is that if you are going to launch a kids’ product, you market it to kids, you don’t market it to Mum,” Sauerman says.
“But you do it in a way that Mum likes the advertising and it sits well with her, because ultimately, what is good and nice for the kids, is good and nice for Mum as well.”
The best way to do that, according to The Marketing Store MD Asia Pacific Christian Roth, is to provide a “rational or emotional benefit” that the parent can see.
“If the product helps the parent to get the child to eat a healthy snack, brush their teeth more regularly or provide them with some quality family time together, then there is a clear benefit to the parent and they will more than likely, once pestered, buy the product.”
Roth says the challenge is to “highlight the parental benefits” of a product, while focusing the main thrust of the communications on the benefits to kids.
“Do you know what Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, Digimon or Monster Rancher is? Would you ever buy those products for yourself? Probably not, yet we buy Digimon yoghurt instead of another brand, Pokemon socks, rather than plain ones, and Dragon Ball Z school folders, rather than coloured ones,” Roth says.
“Even though we do not understand who the characters in the series are, we buy them because our kids constantly talk about these things. And we buy them because of pester power. If they want it badly enough, our kids will wear us down. Children are the best negotiators in the world when they truly want something.”
McDonald’s Happy Meal program is probably the best example of a successful campaign that takes advantage of the role kids play in the purchasing process, Roth says.
“A simple test for this is how many of [us] with kids aged three to seven years have not heard the words ‘Can we go to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal?’.”
Roth says the Happy Meal program has been running in the US since the mid-eighties and is now more successful than ever.
“The formula is near perfect for a kids’ brand: hot properties, strong premium giveaways which change weekly, and food with an excellent reputation—reinforced by advertising with an embedded promotional message targeted at both parents and kids.
“There is no chance here for the kids and parents. You go to McDonald’s, you buy your child a Happy Meal and they get a toy. You might even buy something as well.” n
