Is social media marketing to children ethical?

By Molly Flatt

You may have seen on the news that the government has commissioned Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of charity Mother’s Union, to chair an independent review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood in Britain. Part of the review will involve looking at the impact of social media, brand ambassadors and “online marketing to children” in accelerating the process.

We’ve always been known for our very strong ethical stance on word of mouth, so it’s been great to discuss this with BBC Radio 4, who are going to be considering the review on World at One.

We recently produced a big piece of research for a media client on teenagers; we participate in academic debates around digital and kids; and our family brand specialist Carrie spends her time investigating the most effective and ethical family WOM strategies, so we feel we have a pretty good grounding in the issue.

We avoid engaging directly with kids – we see the ethics as simply too fragile. Our age limits are 16 for trials and 18 for events, and whenever clients approach us to talk about reaching out to children through word of mouth, we help them find alternative routes through communities, parents and schools.

This is equally, if not more successful – we’re targeting the purse holders after all, and kids simply aren’t ready to develop long term brand advocacy. What they experience at a young age may set up many of their future loyalties, but in that case we’ll help brands simply listen to what they want, and then work on their product development, packaging, retail strategy and so on to ensure that they’re offering is so damn great and relevant, the kids will love it enough to want to continue to use the brand now and then engage with them directly when they grow up.

This isn’t to say we outright condemn any word of mouth directly targeting teens – Random House’s Random Buzzers Teen Community for books is a nice example of a carefully moderated campaign. It’s just the way we choose to approach it.

What do you think?

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Brought into the world on Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 and filed under ethics, News.

  • Carrie Grafham

    It's also vital to bear in mind that parents are very vigilant about the commercialisation of their kids – the negative WOM a brand could engender, and the subsequent black-listing amongst parents is a very real risk. As well as being an approach we wholly believe in, it's therefore a far better business strategy to be open about this stance and gain the confidence and potential loyalty of parents.

  • http://topsy.com/www.1000heads.com/2010/12/is-social-media-marketing-to-children-ethical/?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2 Tweets that mention 1000heads :: The Word of Mouth People — Topsy.com

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by James Whatley, 1000heads and Dévai Zoltán, Iskandar Ahmat. Iskandar Ahmat said: Is social media marketing to children ethical? http://bit.ly/gqodNd [...]

  • http://www.1000heads.com/2011/03/participate-in-the-uks-first-ever-word-of-mouth-industry-survey/ 1000heads :: The Word of Mouth People

    [...] We’re creating it now because WOMMA UK have become stakeholders in the industry response to the government’s Bailey Review on child sexualisation and commercialisation, helmed by the AA. The survey therefore gives us an opportunity not only to scope the size and issues of the existing industry, but to drill down into activity involving children and therefore help to set the future ethical agenda – something very important to us here at 1000heads too (you can see our policy on engaging with children here). [...]