Every so often, I come across a piece of moral posturing that makes me sit down, hold my ribs and have a hearty laugh. The latest one in a long line of hypocritical musings is from the advertising fraternity.
A joint study by O&M and Discovery channel says that kids should not be pressurised by overt images of super achievement. Parents seeing overachievers as the norm – when potrayed by the media – tend to pressurize their kids more. The study, quoted in agency faqs, found that kids were driven by their parents with the the triple mantra of compare, compete and compel. In turn, for following this mantra – children emotionally blackmail their parents – because of their innate sense of guilt – to get their own way. This is what is triggering purchases.
Also mourned is the presence of gender bias in most of our adverstising. The boy being the beneficiary, and the girl relegated to the mother role.
The report also believes that the loss of outdoors, playing space and the easy availbility of gadgets has made today’s kid to not a very nice potential adult.
Given the fact that the advertising and media fraternity has spent the last 20 years perfecting super boy and super girl as being role models – I am completely gob struck by this report.
I am stunned by it because in many ways it ignores the role fo media as the influencer.
Talk to most parents and they would tell you that media has really fucked up their lives. their 11 year olds want to go on dates, be in love, and wear tiny clothes.
They say that media in general and advertising in particular has made their kids insensitive. The kids want to grasp, grab and gobble. A parent who succumbs to this is a “good parent”, and a parent who stays firm against such rampant consumption is a “fuddy duddy” – who doesn’t really want the best for their children.
Yesterday’s image of a mother giving her child Complan, to combat exhaustion while studying for exams (1980’s) has been replaced with an image of a cocky brat who drinks complan and lifts a trophy (2000’s) . The entire tone of advertising is that if you do not buy my product for your child – then your child will never be as good, popular, successful, as the kid whose parent’s buy my product. In fact, most advertising goes one step further. It dins it into parents that the child who does not consume my product is a failure, while he who does is a success.
I loved the bit in the report where they talked about gender bias.
Hello, O& M !! which world are you in?
who has been doing a lot of this kind of advertising?Pray tell us. It’s the agency that is putting out this kind of regressive shit. The same kind of agencies that tell the average Indian teenager, that if she is dark, if she massages oil in her hair, or wear’s traditional Indian clothes- well she really will not make it. on the other hand if she uses a fairness cream, a lipstick, a conditioner, a shampoo – then she will be successful.
This one is almost in the same league as Indian mothers love their children 🙂