|
|
Society
'Buy-Buy' Kids
About 15 years
ago, when there was no cable TV in India, children - particularly from the
economically privileged sections - used to be bright-eyed, and generally
interested in playing outdoors. They had more "real" people than gadgets
in their lives; and their favorite words weren't "FREE" or "BUY".
But the advent of cable TV, the steadily growing impact of attractive and
persuasive TV adverts and the targeting of children through "hard-sell"
has changed all that. Indian children today - meaning all those who are
reached through the 80 million TV sets that are avidly watched - are
evolving differently. They not only spend several hours a day watching the
idiot box, they also tell their parents where to bank, and which water
purifier, soap, toothpaste and airline to buy or use. Thanks to
unregulated advertising on private TV channels, children seem to be in a
perennial state of want.
Like many trends and patterns related to the increasing influence of the
market, even this one is a leftover from the West. The USA, however, woke
up to the effects of advertising on children way back in the 1970s. And
although the USA still epitomizes consumer culture, the media and social
scientists have kept the issue alive. The UK, faced with an obesity
epidemic in children, has strictly regulated TV advertisements that target
children, especially food advertising. In other countries like Sweden,
advertisements targeting children below 12 have been banned.
But in India, as in other Third World countries that offer little
resistance in terms of awareness or discussion, "hard-sell" is that much
easier. While a majority of the parents are scarcely aware that their
children are the targets of a multi-million dollar sellers' conspiracy,
the lack of laws regulating advertising ensure unscrupulous manipulation
of the target audience. Up until now, the government hasn't reflected any
inclination to address this issue seriously. Worse, there is a paucity of
social research that looks at the negative impact of advertising on Indian
children.
In the early years of cable TV in India, Namita Unnikrishnan and Shailaja
Bajpai conducted a study titled 'The Impact of Television Advertising on
Children'. "In 1992, an estimated 35 per cent of all TV ads were using
children to attract consumer interest and a larger portion were targeting
the child viewer specifically," says Unnikrishnan. The study, which was
based on a survey conducted in Delhi (and later published by Sage in
1996), says, "...Almost 75 per cent of the children in the 8-15 age group
say they want to own products advertised on TV.... Their 10 favorite ads
include even detergent and airline ads."
More than a decade later, with no regulations, more TVs, more channels and
slicker ads, the figures are bound to be substantially higher. The study
also pointed out that "the average Indian child" is very different from
"the images of affluence and consumer culture" portrayed in TV ads. Urban
children are being brought up with false images of "Indian families".
Although children generally are very perceptive and intelligent, the fact
is that they are considerably less informed - as compared to adults - and
are a largely vulnerable audience for hard advertising. Social scientist
Felix Greene wrote more than 30 years ago that advertising converts a
child's natural energy into "a permanent state of itchy acquisitiveness".
It moulds the self-hood of a child on material acquisitions. A
spokesperson for a popular toy manufacturing company based in the US
admits that their selling strategy is to make children who do not have
their products feel "uncool or inferior".
Chandra Ravikumar, an experienced teacher in Bangalore, recalls that years
ago in the US, a cola company gave out feeding bottles free with their
product; the design of the feeding bottle was exactly like the bottle in
which the cola was sold. "The idea was based on research which indicated
that the child would choose their cola by age nine or 10, when given a
choice." Ravikumar adds, "I once taught at a school where a new principal
threw out the sugarcane juice vendor from near the school gate and allowed
a cola booth to be set up within campus."
Schools aiding sales promotions or tying up with international food giants
have become a common occurrence in Bangalore and other Indian metros.
Schools and day cares often allow promotional song and dance campaigns
where the children are given product samples. The accent is on "buying" -
health, financial or other considerations be damned!
Deepa Sridhar, Principal of Sri Kumarans Children's Home in Bangalore
says, "Though we tell parents not to send junk food, children bring
instant noodles. So, (she justifies) we have a Nestle booth on campus."
Child Psychiatrist Dr S M Manohari says, "Parents use TV as an electronic
babysitter and bribe them using TV toys or chips seen in ads to get
children to behave, eat or cooperate. Children get into a rut of wanting
things all the time." On the long-term effects of advertising on children
she says, "What they see, they learn. Advertisements also encourage
children to be fickle in their loyalties. They don't develop long-lasting
values and children mature in skewed patterns."
Many adverts sell food and toys that parents may not be able to afford or
want to give their children. This often leads to conflicts in parent-child
relationships. "While we haven't had any study to prove this, we have
found that materialism is creeping into parent-child relationships in a
big way. TV time is offered as a reward for having gone to tuition," says
Dr H Uma, a child psychologist at NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental
Health and Neuro Sciences).
To counter the detrimental effects of food adverts, Kala Krishnan Ramesh,
a mother of three, says, "We have to provide them with exotic snacks if we
don't want to buy them what they see on TV. I've also seen that involving
children in the kitchen makes them very interested in food."
Nazarius Manoharan, who was creative director with a leading advertising
agency, says that although Indian ad agencies haven't gone into targeting
children as in the US, "we do seriously look at children". As a father of
two small girls he says, "My wife and I have taken a conscious decision to
combat (these parenting) problems by supplementing our daughters'
education at home and leading by example."
Sweden is the only country in the world to provide consumer and media
education to schoolchildren. America and the UK however, are grappling
with problems like child obesity, school shoot-outs, disillusioned teens
and broken families. Child consumerism seems to have exploded in their
faces. Is that where we want Indian children to go?
– Charumathi Supraja
August 15, 2004
By arrangement with
Womens Feature Service
Top
| Society
|
|
