Final Paper

Ryan Fischer

Professor Braverman

WGS Pop Culture

5/8/16

Where Will KGOY be in 10 Years?

            Childhood has been decaying over the past few years in the shadows of a new concept the marketers of big time companies call KGOY. Marketers realized the potential profit they could reel in from targeting young children with their advertisements and different products, and in turn have changed the way children in society today grow up. KGOY stands for “Kids Getting Older Younger”, and is becoming increasingly more relevant in pop culture and communities across the country. In the book Swimming Upstream: Parenting Girls for Resilience in a Toxic Culture, author Laura Choate explains how the primary cause for KGOY is marketing and advertising. She says that the toys marketed to children represent a marketing trend that pressures children to look hot and sexy, and also act older than they really are (Choate). In 10 years, I think KGOY will still be around because of marketer’s relentless attitude towards profit making strategies, such as the strategies they use to entice young children to purchase products that are inappropriate for their age.

            The KGOY acronym was designed to represent the early maturation of children due to their desire to grow up faster. “Kids Growing Older Younger” is driven by large corporation’s desire for profitability in the markets designed to reach young children. In her book titled Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia, Claudia Mitchell explains that the KGOY phenomenon has led to the death of childhood. Furthermore, in an interview conducted by the Advertising Education Agency, Paul Kurnit described how kids act as a result of KGOY. He says that, “kids between the age of 3 and 5 today, are more like 8 and 9 year olds from decades past in terms of brand knowledge and influence, as well as play patterns and relationships with toys” (Kurnit). This is a result of the combined effect of technological opportunities, the abundance of branding messages that children learn from television advertising, and new trends in parenting. KGOY is also explained as a psychological trend among upper-elementary school children, who desire freedom from their nagging and hovering parents so they can fit into peer groups (Cross). Both views on KGOY emphasize the early maturation of children because of a desire to grow up faster with their peer groups. KGOY has taken shape primarily because of marketers who target young children as potential customers.

            Marketers are the primary driving force behind the development of KGOY among young children in society. Kids nag their parents for the next best toy or piece of technology in order to fit in with their peers because of the advertisements they see on television. Kay Hymowitz, a fellow at the Manhattan institute who writes extensively on childhood and cultural change in America, discusses the birth of KGOY in an interview with Dr. Albert Mohler. She says that marketers ignore parents and directly target kids in their marketing campaigns. The goal of their campaigns is to get kids to think of themselves as older so they can express themselves more and demand more for themselves, while also getting their parents to buy them more toys (Hymowitz). Hymowitz says that when parents are unsure and kids are nagging and empowered, the market will rule. When the market rules, it tells kids what is cool, what they ought to do, what they ought to value, and what they ought to be (Hymowitz). Hymowitz’s logic explains that marketers control the way kids grow up, and continuously strive to make kids feel older by empowering them to buy certain things.

            Some examples of the products that cause kids to grow older younger are violent video games, Barbie dolls, and Bratz dolls. In the market for videogames, Nintendo began to discover that their customer base was expanding as child players became teens and entered their 20s. This caused manufacturers to create more sexual and violent games to appeal to the new enlarged group of customers. However, the presence of the new over sexualized and violent video games lured kids away from the more “babyish” games like Mario (Cross). The exposure to the violent and sexualized videogames has influenced kids to grow older faster by exposing them to mature content. Similarly, Barbie dolls and Bratz dolls provide an oversexualized icon for young girls to look up to. In his article titled “KGOY”- or Kids Growing Older Younger: The Message of Barbie and the Bratz, Albert Mohler discusses the influence Barbie and Bratz dolls have on the development of children. Mohler believes that parents often forget that kids want to grow up fast, and marketers take advantage of it by offering products meant for an older audience to kids between the ages of 3 and 7. Barbie was originally created in 1959 by Ruth Hander as a sexual toy for men. However, now it is marketed to 3-year-old girls (Mohler). To date, over a billion Barbie dolls have been sold, and the average American girl aged between 3 and 11 owns a staggering 10 Barbie dolls (The Economist). As a result of Barbie’s popularity among young children, today it is not uncommon for an eight-year-old to own lip gloss and for 11 year olds to wear a thong to school (Mohler). Barbie’s impact on young girls in society is evident through the way girls sexualize themselves at an early age. Similar to Barbie, Bratz dolls have pressured kids to dress provocatively, wear makeup, and act older. Kay Hymowitz describes Bratz dolls as “little hookers” because of the way the dolls are dressed in scandalous clothing and a heavy amount of makeup. Bratz have influenced young girls to grow up faster by pressuring them into objectifying themselves as sex objects at an early age, like the way their dolls do. Marketing and advertising have the most profound influence on kids in society, and are the main contributor to the development of KGOY.

            KGOY has currently trended upward in the past decade because of marketers who began to market to children between the ages of 3 to 7. Because of strong marketing techniques, KGOY will still be a strong aspect of our society in 10 years because marketers will continue to use their techniques to form self-brand connections within their target customers. Self-brand connections are the prevailing view that consumers engage in a matching process to identify products or brands that are congruent with their self-images (Chaplin). Research demonstrates that individuals use products to communicate their self-concepts, showing that children who play with Barbie dolls and Bratz dolls connect their self-image with the image of the doll. Therefore, they want to dress, wear makeup, and act older like their dolls (Chaplin). Marketers have discovered that consumers can appropriate associations belonging to brands, such as user characteristics or personality traits, and incorporate them into their own self-concepts (Chaplin). When children are exposed to television advertisements for a new toy marketed to them, they appropriate the user characteristics and personality traits of the product to themselves. Most of the time, the products display older personality traits and push children to act an older age. The idea of self-brand connections that marketers develop in children is why kids will continue to grow older younger. The toys and television advertisements that young children associate themselves with are unappropriated for their age because toys like Barbie and Bratz dolls are over sexualized for a young girl. Similarly, violent video games with sexual components are inappropriate to young boys. Marketers ignore how parents feel about the products exposed to their children, and instead attack children with advertisements and product promotions.

Marketers will continue to advertise and create self-brand connections with their young customers because of the tremendous profitability of the strategy. Marketers spend about $17 billion annually in marketing to children, opposed to back in 1983 where marketers only spent around $100 million (“Marketing to Children Overview”). Also, today children under 12 years old influence $500 billion in purchases every year (“Marketing to Children Overview”). Marketers understand that young children themselves don’t have purchasing power, however they possess what marketers call “pester power” (puretheraputics.com). Marketers think of children as cash cows and bombard them with advertising because they know kids will pester their parents to purchase worthless food and toys (puretheraputics.com). The tremendous success marketers have had with advertising to kids at a very young age implies that they will continue to apply this approach and technique to continue to be profitable. Therefore, kids will still be exposed to over sexualized and mature dolls and toys, causing them to age faster and desire to be older. KGOY will not dissipate in 10 years because marketers have a firm grip on advertising to children and are extremely effective in their methods of creating a self-brand connection with children and their brand. However, parents need to consistently expose their children to positive role models and continue to point out positive qualities of people in order for children to develop positive behavior (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry). KGOY can have a positive impact on children as long as parents consistently expose their children to good role models and point out positives so kids can grow and develop into good people like those around them, instead of developing into the oversexualized dolls and violent video game characters that are marketed towards them.

            KGOY has taken shape over the past decade because of children’s exposure to mature content and toys that are designed for older children. Kids are getting older younger because it is the marketer’s goal for kids to think of themselves as younger. KGOY allows companies to profit off of the billions of dollars that kids influence their parents to spend on the toys and videogames. Self-brand connections are driving kids to associate themselves with the violent video games and sexualized Barbie dolls, therefore causing them to adapt an older image of themselves. KGOY will continue to present itself in society because marketers will refuse to forfeit the profit opportunities that exist among the market of 3-7-year-old children. They will continue to neglect parents in their decision to market to kids, and thrive off of the pester power of children that lead to $500 billion in purchases every year. KGOY will always be relevant in our society because of how crucial marketing and advertising is to our capitalist economy. However, parents need to expose their children to positive role models and point out positive qualities in famous people to teach children that their Barbie and Bratz dolls aren’t the ideal way to act in society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Chaplin, Lan Nguyen, and Deborah Roedder, John. “Journal of Consumer Research.” Ed. Darren Dahl, Eileen Fischer, Gita Johar, and Vivki Morwitz. Journal of Consumer Research 32.1: 119-129. Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press, 1 June 2005. Web. 9 May 2016. http://jcr.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/119.full.

Cross, Gary. “Jaded Children, Callow Adults.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle Review, 10 March 2014. Web. 9 May 2016. http://chronicle.com/article/Jaded-Children-Callow-Adults/145117/.

Choate, Laura Hensley. Swimming Upstream: Parenting Girls for Resilience in a Toxic Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2016. Print.

Hymowitz, Kay. “Kids Growing Older Younger: Bratz Dolls and Barbies.” Interview by Albert Mohler. AlbertMohler.com. 19 December 2006. Web. 9 May 2016.

Kurnit, Paul. “Kids Getting Older Younger.” Advertising Educational Foundation. Advertising Educational Foundation, 1999. Web. 9 May 2016. http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/35.

“Life in Plastic.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 21 December 2002. Web. 9 May 2016. http://www.economist.com/node/1487595.

“Marketing to Children Overview.” Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. Web. 9 May 2016. http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/resource/marketing-children-overview.

Mitchell, Claudia, and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh. Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Print.

Mohler, Albert. “KGOY”- or Kids Growing Older Younger: The Message of Barbie and the Bratz.” AlbertMohler.com. 20 December 2006. Web. 9 May 2016. http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/12/20/kgoy-or-kids-growing-older-younger-the-message-of-barbie-and-the-bratz/.

“Role Models and Children.” American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, September 2011. Web. 9 May 2016. https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Children-and-Role-Models-099.aspx.