Advertising For Children

Believe it or not one of my most memorable times growing up as a child was watching commercials on Nickelodeon, and then hinting to mummy when she was in the room by saying 'mummy look how cool this is'. That's how these adverts for kids get their customers, they convince the child to want the toy, and before you know it its added to the Christmas or birthday list. My mum was one step ahead of these adverts so she wouldn't always get me everything I asked for, and as for my dad as long as I had sisters and cousins around I didn't need toys.

Furthermore some of these ads were in relation to some of the popular kids shows, for example during the break of watching Barney or Sesame Street, an ad may come up advertising a new game or toy in affiliation with the show I was watching.
Sometimes company's will use characters from the kids shows to advertise their product/event. Here is an example of one

Kids generally have a short attention span, and if you want to sell something to them in a TV commercial it needs to have high energy and be as quick and to the point as possible and of course not to confusing. This is an advert by Alton towers, featuring Barney. I loved Barney as a child, and although I don't particularly remember this advert, I'm sure after I saw it, I asked my mum to take me to Alton Towers. This advert has kids voices in the background sayings 'that's not Barneys home' , as Barney dances around singing happily with sunglasses on. Using young toddlers voices, makes the kids feel involved, and most children that watch it probably join in with what the kids are saying. When the Alton Towers icon pops up the kids say 'That's Barneys Home', and he jumps in, indicating that this is where Barney can be found. When your a kid and you love a TV character it means everything to meet them, if kids know that Barney could possibly be at Alton Towers then they are going to bug their parents to go just so they could possibly meet Barney. Alton Towers didn't only use Barney, but they use other kid show characters, the more characters they show the more kids are going to want to go to Alton Towers and eventually the parents will give in. The way Alton Towers used Barney in this commercial was very ideal, as his show involved interacting with young kids,  having a group of children talking as if it is a pantomime, is apart of what Barney does in the actual show, so it was almost like the kids were watching the actual Barney show, and they just found out where he lives- Alton Towers!

This is why Disneyland & Disney-world is so successful, because they use full advantage of the characters from the Disney stories. Every child has at least one favorite Disney character and adults love to go to theme parks, so its a perfect family day out, everyone's happy. Furthermore Disney has been going on for so many years, the characters have grown with adults,  they even go to see Disney theater shows (The Lion King), so Disney Theme parks sell itself to both children and adults. 

The best way to advertise the kids is to be as interactive as possible, so when companies are advertising via billboards, they need to be as visually entertaining as possible. Lets have a look at some billboard adverts for kids, and how well the ad appeals to kids. 

This is a poster advertising the game Logo, its ideally targeted at children. Only a small percentage of adults will pay attention to this advert, and this is most likely because they are forced to look at it on a tube, train or on a billboard; stuck in traffic. But usually adults are on the go and avoid paying any attention to adverts, especially if their not looking for something, they would usually miss adverts like these. Children like colors, so they will notice the advert initially because it looks pretty, but then the all the attention will eventually fade off within a few seconds. To much is going on for a young infant to pay attention to, it shows the product and what comes inside the game, but it doesn't really Sell. Children know that they can only have a certain amount of toys, and this wouldn't make it to the top 10,it doesn't show the amount of fun you can have with it, and there is just way to much to read. This is an example of a non effective ad for kids. 

This is an ad for a cereal ideally for kids. Kellogg s is known for correlating characters and stories behind cereals, so kids can feel involved in a story when they are eating the cereal. Scooby-Doo was a popular kids TV program, so it was a brilliant idea to introduce a new cereal based that show. So if a child was walking on the road with their mum and they see the ad , Scooby - Doo will catch their eye, then they would think , why is Scooby - Doo on a poster? They would then see that Scooby is holding a bowl full of cereal, then they will realize that this is a cereal that Scooby- doo eats, and just like celebs set trend for adults so do TV characters for children. This is an example of a good advert for kids, its colorful, with a familiar face, and shows clearly what the product is without loosing the attention of the children. 

All and all we know that the best kids adverts feature popular the most interesting things that appeal to kids. When your selling to children you must make them want the product, and the best ways that this has been done has been through TV or Story characters. Children like to relate things back to something else, If a random Dog was to do an ad, a small percentage of kids will pay attention to it, the rest will notice the product but not necessarily want the product being advertised, simply because they don't know who is advertising it.

Another excellent way to advertise to children is through interaction!

Now I learnt this during my time working for Hamleys, for those of you who don't know Hamleys is a Toy store on Regent St London, its been around for 254 years and was actually the biggest toy store in the world until Toys R Us in New York took over :( .  Regardless it was, in my opinion one of the best kid stores that I have ever been to. Its strange most people know about Hamleys, and even celebrities come from all over the world just to shop there for their kids, yet I have never seen a commercial or ad on anything to do with Hamleys. I can probably recall vising Hamleys once or twice as a child, but yet I knew as much as I needed to know about it - it was a massive fun toy store. There were even times I took my sisters to Hamleys, way before I worked there , just to play all day and go home, and I know that most kids look at Hamleys like a 'day out', not really to go toy shopping.

So how do people know about Hamleys if they never advertise outside of the store?

Well apart from the different branches all over the world,the main store is on Regent Street in central London, this is a main place where not only Londoners visit,but where tourist often go. Regent street is often busy, as its near the main places in London, Piccadilly, Oxford street, Soho, Hyde Park and the list can go on. Many buses and cars pass regent street and without sounding biased, Hamleys was the most memorable thing on that street because characters were always outside, taking pictures, giving out balloons, screaming, singing basically doing anything possible to entertain the general public. Someone would always stand outside with the 'bubble gun' and these bubbles would go in all directions and anyone in the are who would see the bubbles knows that it is coming from Hamleys. Below is an example of a normal day at Hamleys, and what staff outside would typically do to attract customers.

Once the customers are in the store its like a market- everyone is selling something! Now this is what you call DIRECT advertising. Staff are located all throughout the store demonstrating how to use different toys, and even allowing the kids to interact and try them, is the perfect way to make a child want a toy. Children get attached to things they like easily, if they are playing with a toy, most likely, they are going to want it. So many times I have served at  the till point and 90% of the time, the parent/ guardian spots something in the shopping bag they didn't approve of , this is because the child was playing with it and because they had it throughout the whole time they were in the store; average shoppers spend 2 hours in Hamleys;  they have built up an attachment with the toy. Most of the time the child gets the toy that they wanted, that's what you call direct active selling, instantly the child wants the toy and leaves with it the same day. Its the best form of advertising in my opinion because the toy is in the child's hand, its not like they have to order it online and wait to see what it looks and feels like. Buyers also feel secure buying from demonstrates because its a person who sell the toy to the child, if there is any miss communication, they can always go back to that person/ store as a referral.  

Here is an example of how a product is advertised in Hamleys. We must remember that advertising isn't just billboards and commercials, but its any form of exposure of a product, for the purpose of sales. 

In this clip above, it shows what casually takes place on the inside of Hamleys, we can see first of all a toy car on the floor moving like a caterpillar, many customers would come and see this and then look to see who is controlling the car, sometimes a  child would play with it and start to enjoy it, and then another child will see them playing with it then want it as well- this is the nature of children to want what someone else has. After we see the car, we then see a 'light-up' UFO toy, this is flying in the air and of course it catches the attention of shoppers. This often happens in Hamleys, shoppers get distracted by all of the display and demonstrations, and because the store is massive with 7 floors with completely different toys on every floor, it can take hours for shoppers even without kids to get through the store. Most of the time when  served on a till the items that children and even adults chose, were those that were being demonstrated, if most of these toys were not demonstrated the sales wouldn't be as high.