Campaigns

Product placement in films, TV programmes and books; spin-offs; text messages; internet pop-ups and advertgames; competitions and special offers… Marketers are coming up with ever more ingenious methods to infuse children’s lives with advertising messages. The child oriented market in the UK has grown to £30billion and has laid roots in every aspect of children’s lives from how they learn to what they eat and how they play.

Constant exposure to commercial messages is shaping the way children see themselves and the world, it is impacting on children’s desires, values and aspirations. Today, by the age of ten children can on average recall 300 to 400 brands – that’s twenty times the number of birds in the wild they can name. 70% of three year olds recognise the McDonalds symbol but only half of them know their own surname.

Compass is working to build a broad coalition of individuals and organisations who want to campaign for something to be done about this.

We’ve published a report that reveals an army of marketing experts and branding gurus spending billions every year to directly target children to sell products and groom them for a lifetime of consumerism. They are inventing ever more ingenious ways of infiltrating children’s worlds, subverting parents and families and exploiting children’s emotional vulnerabilities in the name of profit.

The report argues that engulfed with images of how they should look and be and what they should own, children struggle to keep up resulting in increasing rates of stress, depression and low–self esteem. Rampant marketing is also contributing to all time high levels of obesity and related health problems in children.

Can children be children before they are consumers? Join in the debate today! You can download and comment on the report here.

We are asking individuals and organisations to back the launch report which sets out the issues and problems. The campaign will continue with a roundtable of key campaigning groups and regional debates with parents, children and communities to work out what we can do to make sure children are allowed to be children before they are consumers.

This is a worrying and growing concern that we can only tackle together. It’s not about being kill joys but trying to rebalance the lives of children – to ensure they are more than just young consumers.

The more organisations, professionals and parents who sign up their support and endorsement for the campaign the more effective we can be.

If you would like further information about the campaign, or to register your support please do not hesitate to e-mail Zoe in the Compass office or telephone 020 7463 0632.

In Parliament, Helen Goodman MP has tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) in support of the campaign. You can read the EDM and check if your MP has signed it.

You can support the campaign by lobbying your MP to sign the EDM if they haven’t already. Information on how to contact your MP can be found at: http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/

What the papers say
Jackie Ashley ‘Brands have turned us into a nation of addicts’ The Guardian, 11^th December

Lucy Ward ‘Ads blamed for childhood stress’, The Guardian, 12^th December

Sarah Womack ‘Children dying in spend, spend Britain’, The Daily Telegraph 12^th December

Other articles also appeared in the Daily Mirror; the Daily Mail; The Times; Metro and LondonLite.

OUR SUPPORTERS
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams as Patron of The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry; The Family and Parenting Institute; nef (the new economics foundation); the Children’s Food Campaign; and the National Association of Head Teachers are amongst those who have welcomed the report and calls for a debate.

Sue Palmer author of Toxic Childhood said: “The effects of marketing on children is possibly the most significant factor in toxic childhood syndrome, deeply implicated in the rise in children's mental health, behavioural and learning problems. But since marketers communicate direct with children, successfully infiltrating playground culture, very few adults have any idea of the extent of the problem. The Compass report is the information they need, and I urge all parents, teachers and politicians to read it -- indeed, everyone interested in the future of our society.”;

Carole Whitty, Deputy General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers said “Children have a right to their childhood. We all share with Business, retailers, the media and politicians the responsibility to provide our children a national supportive environment where innocence can grow into experience and wisdom at the appropriate pace. As school leaders and teachers we see daily that precociousness, encouraged by commercial interests and images can take away the joy of being a child. We are in danger of corrupting the young minds which will have to lead our nation's future. NAHT fully supports the messages behind this research.”;

Lucy Lloyd, Director of Communications at the Family and Parenting Institute, said: "Parents have told us that they are uncomfortable about companies spending vast sums on targeting children, using tactics which pit them against their parents. In a country where at least one in five children live in poor families it is time to ask questions about the ethics of ‘pester power’."

Bob Reitemeier, Chief Executive of The Children’s Society who manage The Good Childhood Inquiry said: “Compass’ report, which argues that childhood is being increasingly commercialised, provides further evidence that our wealth as a society has not bought us the kind of childhood we want for our children. Recent research has revealed that while we are wealthier than fifty years ago, the well-being of children in the UK is amongst the lowest in Europe. The increasing realisation that, as a society, we have got some important things wrong about childhood is why The Children’s Society has launched the UK’s first independent inquiry into childhood. The effect of an unchecked escalation of marketing to children, as outlined in Compass’ report, is one of the key areas to be considered by the inquiry panel.”;