Speaker 1: Hey, we're going to Send Francisco. That's right, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna have flowers in our hair San Francisco because we
Speaker 1: are performing at s F Sketch Fest for the second
Speaker 1: year running. We can't wait. We are doing a rare
Speaker 1: afternoon show on Sunday, January at one pm. Go to
Speaker 1: s F Sketch Fest dot com to enquire about tickets
Speaker 1: and get them fast because they're gonna sell out because
Speaker 1: you guys are always so good to us and we
Speaker 1: can't wait to see everybody there. S F Sketch Fest
Speaker 1: dot com Sunday afternoon, one pm January. Bye bye. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know from the house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
Speaker 1: It's nice and cool in here in the Studiosdo one
Speaker 1: a it's a it is, Yeah, don't tell us what
Speaker 1: happens if you're listening to this after Tuesday the right
Speaker 1: spoiler free zone. Hey, feeling nervous tents by the puke? Nope,
Speaker 1: none of the above. Well, good man, you look like
Speaker 1: you're jelling like a felon. Chuck that means, don't you
Speaker 1: remember those? Uh, that doesn't matter. Um, do you remember
Speaker 1: being a child? Uh? Sure? Do you remember? About two
Speaker 1: weeks ago when we released our action figure episode do Well,
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about being a child and about toys,
Speaker 1: and we even touched on advertising and deregulation, which we
Speaker 1: will get into again a little bit here. But um,
Speaker 1: if you were a child and you watch television, basically
Speaker 1: at any point from the nineteen forties on, you were
Speaker 1: probably advertised to in some form of fashion. But early
Speaker 1: on it was kind of clunky, right, Like the first day,
Speaker 1: I think the first dad ever on TV was a
Speaker 1: bull of a watch ad and it just showed a
Speaker 1: bull of a watch ticking off sixty seconds. Say what
Speaker 1: more do you need? Apparently nothing? Right? And then they thought, well, hey,
Speaker 1: people love to tune in to watch the hosts, so
Speaker 1: we'll have the hosts just pitch you know, coult brand
Speaker 1: firearms or whatever. You know. I thought you could say
Speaker 1: malt liquor. You know that came later first? Is the
Speaker 1: firearms well together? Actually one makes the other go off? Uh?
Speaker 1: So they would have like hosts read this stuff. So
Speaker 1: when kids programming came into the fold, that it followed
Speaker 1: that kind of natural progression where like an ad was
Speaker 1: just this, uh, the host suddenly saying like, hey, kids,
Speaker 1: by the way, you will love these firecrackers that have
Speaker 1: my picture on it. Right, who was that kind of
Speaker 1: kind of hockey there was? Actually I found this one
Speaker 1: really great UM article on retising to children, and it
Speaker 1: talks about this nineteen fifties show called Miss Francis is
Speaker 1: Ding Dong School and Ms Francis she would like read
Speaker 1: to the kids, talk to them like they were kids.
Speaker 1: But just basically it was a cute little kids show
Speaker 1: from what I can gather. Then every once in a
Speaker 1: while she would take kids, it's time for a very
Speaker 1: special message. Go get your parents and bring them in
Speaker 1: to hear this special message. And the kids would run
Speaker 1: and get their parents and bring them in to see
Speaker 1: the TV. And uh, Miss Francis would fool everybody by
Speaker 1: pitching an ad basically. So these are like the early ads, right.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I think nineteen fifty two that the
Speaker 1: actual first ad for kids product, a toy by the
Speaker 1: name of Mr Potato Head, first hit the airwaves. That's right, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty ninety two wasn't that long. Ago. But um,
Speaker 1: things have really really changed since then. And one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons why it's changed just because companies and
Speaker 1: corporations and toymakers and fast food chains and candy, candy ears,
Speaker 1: candy Yeah, sure is that a word. Sure it is now,
Speaker 1: taffy makers. They all know that. Kids. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of money, not only in what kids want to buy
Speaker 1: for themselves, but the influenced kids have on their family
Speaker 1: and what they do. It's blockbuster. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but like you know, we talked we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: this a little bit later, but indoctrinating these kids at
Speaker 1: a very young age as brand loyalists because like, get
Speaker 1: them while they're young. Yeah, and if you you, if
Speaker 1: you do that, you're kind of like planning seeds that
Speaker 1: will hopefully grow into something where you're like, well, Colgate
Speaker 1: toothpaste love me. I remember that from being a kid.
Speaker 1: So when I don't want the cartoons, I want to
Speaker 1: be loved by mother Colegate. Yeah, so that's what you
Speaker 1: buy as an adult. What was the uh we put
Speaker 1: holes in teeth? Remember that vaguely? I don't know who
Speaker 1: might have been a little before your time, it was
Speaker 1: I don't remember the toothpaste may have been Colgate. No,
Speaker 1: I think it was the Crest team, but it was
Speaker 1: just a full on super hero team of cavity fighters.
Speaker 1: I remember them wedged into cartoon programming. Yes, I remember that,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know as well, we'll talk about it,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't tell the difference between that in the
Speaker 1: cartoon I was watching. I remember being at school and
Speaker 1: being taught how to brush my teeth with those same guys. Yea,
Speaker 1: the Crest Cavity Fighters or something like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course we're talking about fighting cavities. And as you'll
Speaker 1: see in some of this material, like sometimes these brands
Speaker 1: try and push things for good, but they're still pushing
Speaker 1: their brand. Yeah. That's the thing. Man. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to just be like, oh, wow, Colgate really does love
Speaker 1: my children or Crest really does care about my kids teeth. No,
Speaker 1: they don't. They do not. They don't love you or
Speaker 1: your family. They don't actually care about your kids teeth.
Speaker 1: They care about creating this kind of relationship between the
Speaker 1: brand and your family. They care that your kids have teeth.
Speaker 1: There you go, because they could sell toothpaste. It's true.
Speaker 1: Uh So when we talk about influence, um, you found,
Speaker 1: um a study from about eight years ago. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the this is the most recent stuff I could find.
Speaker 1: Some of it seems a little old ish, but this
Speaker 1: is as as new as I can find. Man, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's right. So the influence basically is what we're talking
Speaker 1: about of kids over their family. These um, these little
Speaker 1: power wielding monsters, three foot tall, power wielding monsters. Ye
Speaker 1: know that apparently of the time they will influence, um,
Speaker 1: the breakfast choice, the lunch choice, going out to eat,
Speaker 1: of the time you're gonna go where your kid wants
Speaker 1: to go, And thirty four per cent of kids have
Speaker 1: a say every time, which okay, all right, I think
Speaker 1: was just casual family meal. What's the difference mean that
Speaker 1: in the choice of restaurant, So like I want to
Speaker 1: eat hamburgers or specifically I want to eat, you know,
Speaker 1: in an out burger? I think no. I think with
Speaker 1: the thirty four percent of kids, every time the family
Speaker 1: DESI to eat, the kid has to say in thirty
Speaker 1: percent of families, whereas overall percent of restaurant choices have
Speaker 1: a kid saying it. Okay. That doesn't mean every kid
Speaker 1: gets that say every time. It's a bit it's a
Speaker 1: bit confusing, maybe even unnecessary. One could argue, I think
Speaker 1: we could just agree that kids have an undue amount
Speaker 1: of power software. Seventy percent at a time, they're gonna
Speaker 1: influence what kind of software you're buying in the family,
Speaker 1: and sixty percent a time what kind of computer. Family outings,
Speaker 1: family trips and excursions. That's a pressing staff. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any choice of where we went as a child. No,
Speaker 1: I was told where we were going on vacation. I
Speaker 1: was never asked. I don't remember being asked to either.
Speaker 1: I mean, like they my parents mostly planned family trips
Speaker 1: that like we would enjoy, but I remember them being like,
Speaker 1: do you want to go here? Here? It was like
Speaker 1: this is where we're going? Yeah, and I was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was always camping for us, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times in Florida or uh mostly in Florida. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: you grew up in Georgia, Florida. Why a lot of
Speaker 1: beach camping. But um, yeah, we certainly never got any
Speaker 1: say like I want to go to Disney World. You
Speaker 1: wish in one hand, yeah, exactly. So you take that
Speaker 1: influence that kids have over their parents purchases, and you
Speaker 1: combine it with their actual like allowance or lawnmowing money
Speaker 1: or whatever, the money that they actually spend from their
Speaker 1: own pockets. And what you have is called kids buying power,
Speaker 1: and it is staggering. Right back in two thousand, kids
Speaker 1: buying power equaled about five hundred billion dollars a year
Speaker 1: in the United States. It's just got more and more,
Speaker 1: higher and higher. Two thousand and five it had gone
Speaker 1: up to seven hundred billion, right jump change. You want
Speaker 1: to hit him with the two thousand twelve stat and
Speaker 1: this is this is almost five years ago. Now one
Speaker 1: point two trillion dollars. That's how much money kids directly
Speaker 1: or indirectly spent in the United States. It's amazing, it is.
Speaker 1: So there's one more factor too that makes advertisers really
Speaker 1: want kids. They will eventually grow into adult consumers. There
Speaker 1: are already kid consumers. They're already influencing their parents buying choices.
Speaker 1: But they'll eventually grow up. And like you said, if
Speaker 1: you can hit them young, can get that brand loyalty developed,
Speaker 1: then they will grow up and remember that that affiliation
Speaker 1: to it, that nostalgia you know, and you will you
Speaker 1: will buy that product throughout your lifetime. I think I
Speaker 1: used crass toothpaste. I still I still go to Colgate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I was raised on. Uh. So I looked
Speaker 1: up something. UM it's called pester power. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of that? That is, Um, well, it's exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's it's how kids manipulate their parents
Speaker 1: into getting them things, and it's by pet bothering them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they did some uh some the you gov Omnibus
Speaker 1: Parents survey got some stats and UM, fifty seven percent
Speaker 1: of parents I think their children are successful persuaders. And
Speaker 1: the top tactic from a kid, according to seventy one
Speaker 1: percent of parents, is verbal negotiation. Uh said they were.
Speaker 1: They were bartered like I'll do more chores. I'll get
Speaker 1: better grades if you get me this stuff, whereas it
Speaker 1: should be like, no, you should get better grades anyway.
Speaker 1: You know, not really gonna buy you this garbage. Uh.
Speaker 1: Create wish lists. That was big when we were kids.
Speaker 1: I that was one of the funniest things to do. Um.
Speaker 1: All those kids always look so happy in there too,
Speaker 1: you know, do you I've showed you that like wish
Speaker 1: book web before, where they just go through scan old catalogs.
Speaker 1: Talk about nostalgia. It's John Hodge. Won't even look at that,
Speaker 1: and like I would see a slight tear goes down
Speaker 1: his cheek and then drop a blood goes out of
Speaker 1: his ear, right, and then that tear turns to acid
Speaker 1: and then burns through the floor. He's like, stop, no,
Speaker 1: I won't give him. Uh. Parents say, some kids list
Speaker 1: pros and cons or write letters or power point presentations
Speaker 1: of kids. Right, power Point presentations, that's the lobby for
Speaker 1: a gift. I'd be like, good for you, buddy, you're
Speaker 1: learning some future skills. You're gonna be a salesman, a
Speaker 1: road warrior. And apparently of parents said that they buckled
Speaker 1: and bought the item at an average purchase cost of
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty three dollars. Whoa talk about pestor power?
Speaker 1: I would I would make a power point presentation for
Speaker 1: a two dollar item, but first you have to lobby
Speaker 1: for the power point software. Right, you can make your
Speaker 1: presentation to get your garbage toy. That reminds me, um,
Speaker 1: you me told me when she was a kid she
Speaker 1: made this basically this menu of stuff that her parents
Speaker 1: would pay her money for. It would be like, didn't
Speaker 1: put salt on my food at dinner. You give me
Speaker 1: fifteen cents, not penalties. It was stuff that she was
Speaker 1: doing and then they would just pay her for it.
Speaker 1: And her parents looked at it. We're like, this is
Speaker 1: a really great idea, except, like you said earlier, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing this anyway. We'll tell you if
Speaker 1: you can put salt on your food. We're not going
Speaker 1: to give you money to not put salt on your food.
Speaker 1: You just can't automatically, no money involved. But yeah, pestor power,
Speaker 1: do you know what my allowance was? Do you remember
Speaker 1: what your allowance was? What? Five dollar or a month? Well,
Speaker 1: this is back in nineteen seventy six, right, yeah, seven,
Speaker 1: Well that's like a hundred thousand dollars today. I should
Speaker 1: look that up. I'm curious what that would be in
Speaker 1: today's dollars. Five dollars a month bucks a month, That
Speaker 1: does seems small. What did you do with it? I
Speaker 1: think I probably saved it if I remember correctly, and
Speaker 1: saved up to buy things I was. I mean, I
Speaker 1: got my first job when I was thirteen, who because
Speaker 1: I was like, I want my money to buy things, well,
Speaker 1: to buy Star Wars and my own stuff. I knew
Speaker 1: that you know. I mean my parents were teachers were
Speaker 1: In fact, at the time, my mom wasn't even working.
Speaker 1: It was a single parent teacher household. So we we
Speaker 1: were fine, but we didn't They didn't throw money at
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. So those socks are good, just
Speaker 1: sew them together and make a new sock and rugal.
Speaker 1: And they didn't give me a hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 1: And oh yeah, I had friends that got allowances like that,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, that's not Even when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I remember being like that seems wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like why why are you getting that? You're not doing
Speaker 1: anything for that money? Like the kids who got the
Speaker 1: hundred dollar a week allowances were the ones who did
Speaker 1: the least of all. Yes, you know, liked I worked
Speaker 1: around my house. I'll tell you that, I'd sit on
Speaker 1: my face all the time. I didn't get a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a week sweeping that chimney. All right, So all
Speaker 1: this equals a lot of spending, And then on the
Speaker 1: flip side of that, you're gonna have a lot of
Speaker 1: spending on advertising. UM In the US, in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: company spent seventeen billion dollars on advertising directly at children
Speaker 1: and kids in America. This is horrifying. Kids in the
Speaker 1: United States today see forty thousand ads a year. Wow,
Speaker 1: so seventeen billion. That sounds like a lot, and it
Speaker 1: is right. But in nine eight three, just in nine
Speaker 1: eighty three, they spent a hundred million dollars on ads.
Speaker 1: It jumped up that much since three. And we'll see
Speaker 1: why in a little while. That's a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: adds a day that kids are seeing. Could that be right?
Speaker 1: That's a hundred and ten ads that are out there
Speaker 1: on on kids programming. It doesn't necessarily mean they see
Speaker 1: them all. They're just there for them to see. Oh.
Speaker 1: So when it says kids see an estimated, that just
Speaker 1: means they're out there for So here's something. Here's something
Speaker 1: that I'm I've run across. There are there's a huge
Speaker 1: body of research on advertising to kids that will get
Speaker 1: into There are also some figures out there where it's
Speaker 1: like I've seen this, but then I've also seen that.
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, you know, so, like you said, a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten adds a day, Yeah, that's that's there's no
Speaker 1: way that any kid has ever seen a hundred and
Speaker 1: ten ads in a day. I don't know, man, think
Speaker 1: about it. But we've willboards internet commercials. I guess that's
Speaker 1: entirely possible. I guess that's possible. You might see twenty
Speaker 1: five ads on your way home from school, but I
Speaker 1: have seen that forty thousand ads a year thing all
Speaker 1: over the place. For sure. I could buy that so
Speaker 1: ads in school, which we'll get too. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's there's this whole idea that yeah, oh man, that's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of ads, or that's a lot of
Speaker 1: money being spent to advertise to children. Maybe we should
Speaker 1: tone it down, or maybe we should think about how
Speaker 1: we're doing this a little differently. No, say some people.
Speaker 1: There's a particularly a group called Commercial Free Childhood Campaign
Speaker 1: for a commercial Free Childhood, and they say kids should
Speaker 1: not see ads at all. Yea, even the say the
Speaker 1: good ones that say eat this healthy thing or a
Speaker 1: brush your teeth, don't Because what they're saying is is
Speaker 1: if you teach kids to identify with products through the
Speaker 1: kind of advertising, which is basically celebrity endorsement, whether that
Speaker 1: celebrity is Don Mattingly or um Tony the Tiger, like
Speaker 1: a made up celebrity, it's still a cult of personality
Speaker 1: that the kids buying into not Oh, these carets actually
Speaker 1: are good to me, are good form me. It's don
Speaker 1: maddeningly says that I can be a world class home
Speaker 1: run hitter if I eat these carrots. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So the focus is still on mindless consumerism,
Speaker 1: even if they are being leaned towards like good commercial
Speaker 1: or yeah, good good product or whatever, good habits or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one selection that you pulled here was really telling.
Speaker 1: It says, um, advertising in and of itself is harmful
Speaker 1: to children. Marketing targets emotions, not intellect, trains children to
Speaker 1: choose products not for the actual value, but because of
Speaker 1: what's on the package of the celebrity, undermines critical thinking,
Speaker 1: promotes impulse buying. Yeah, that's like it says it. All
Speaker 1: that was Susan Lynn of the UH campaign for Commercial
Speaker 1: Free Childhood makes a lot of sense. Don't regulate it,
Speaker 1: get rid of it, exactly. And there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of pushes over the years to do just that in
Speaker 1: the United States. Other countries have done it. Um And
Speaker 1: as people have kind of battled over this this, a
Speaker 1: lot of study has been and done on what impact
Speaker 1: advertising has on kids brains, and we'll dive into that
Speaker 1: right after these messages, all right, before we broke Uh well,
Speaker 1: earlier we were talking about I was saying I couldn't
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. I remember the Crest Cavity Fighters,
Speaker 1: and I just thought it was another cartoon. Um, that's
Speaker 1: not because I was a dumb kid. It's because if
Speaker 1: you are. They've determined, this is through scientific study and inquiry,
Speaker 1: that if you are under four years old, you literally
Speaker 1: cannot tell the difference between a commercial and the program
Speaker 1: you're watching. No, like, not at all, even if they
Speaker 1: use commercial break techniques like we'll be right back after
Speaker 1: these messages or whatever, right which they have to use.
Speaker 1: You notice you don't see that between you know, commercials
Speaker 1: for Seinfeld. You know, No, it's true, we'll be back
Speaker 1: right after this. Can you believe? But you have to
Speaker 1: have that stuff in kids programming, even though if you're
Speaker 1: under the age of four does no good. No Like,
Speaker 1: the kid literally cannot discern between the program they're watching
Speaker 1: and the ads. That That's nuts to me. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that until I started researching that. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: Uh well, we talked about it in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, but yeah we did yeah, okay, um between
Speaker 1: four and five. As you start to get a little
Speaker 1: bit older, you might be able to tell a difference categorically,
Speaker 1: but you're still it's it's more along the lines of,
Speaker 1: well that's shorter, that that cartoon was really short, or
Speaker 1: it was funnier yeah, or look different or whatever. So
Speaker 1: you can tell the difference, but you still don't know
Speaker 1: you're being you know, shoveled and add on your tiny
Speaker 1: little throat. Ye. And there's two there's two things that
Speaker 1: children lack that you need to be able to understand
Speaker 1: and add at its basis right, and one is you
Speaker 1: have to number one, be able to differentiate it from
Speaker 1: the program. So you have to be able to say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's an AD. When they said after these messages will
Speaker 1: be right back, it means that the show went away,
Speaker 1: and now what i'm seeing is an AD. That's step one.
Speaker 1: Step two is that you have to be able to
Speaker 1: understand that in any kind of ad you're being advertised to,
Speaker 1: you're you're being persuaded, and that the message that's coming
Speaker 1: at you is biased and therefore you should take it
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. That comes even later than
Speaker 1: understanding the difference between an AD and the program. Right
Speaker 1: the the idea that you're you're being advertised to doesn't
Speaker 1: come until at least seven. From what I've seen, you
Speaker 1: don't even know what grain of salt means. You don't
Speaker 1: know what that expression means. You have no idea because
Speaker 1: you can't even say, as a parent, I would take
Speaker 1: it with a grain of salt. At an AD, they'll go,
Speaker 1: what are these words? What I like salt? Uh? There's
Speaker 1: a Center for New American Dream and um, this is frightening.
Speaker 1: They said. Babies he's young as six months old, conform
Speaker 1: mental images of corporate logos and mascot's. I didn't find
Speaker 1: what that's how they figured that out? Was it like
Speaker 1: your baby draw draw dome? Manningly, what has he ever endorsed? Promoter?
Speaker 1: Right now? Is he? I don't know what years is? Okay? Uh?
Speaker 1: And brand loyalties can be established by the age of
Speaker 1: two and um, yeah, that one that's crazy to me.
Speaker 1: And apparently in the British study at least they found it.
Speaker 1: You have to be close to a teenager up to
Speaker 1: about twelve is when you can finally really discern an
Speaker 1: AD from content and its intent on an adult level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's about where. And what's interesting thing is the the
Speaker 1: group that that conducted that study and concluded that was
Speaker 1: an advertising lobbying group. So even they are like, yes,
Speaker 1: kids under the age of twelve are mentally incapable of
Speaker 1: discerning the intent and content of ads. All they get
Speaker 1: is the the overall message of the ad, which is
Speaker 1: you want this, Go tell your parents that you want this,
Speaker 1: Go make your parents pastor power exactly use a power point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the American Psychology Association they had this task force
Speaker 1: in two thousand four and they basically looked at all
Speaker 1: the available literature over the last like, you know, several decades.
Speaker 1: I think it was the sixties where they really started
Speaker 1: looking into it. Um and the a p A basically concluded, yes,
Speaker 1: kids are kids can't understand advertising. It's unfair to advertised
Speaker 1: to kids. This is the position of the a p A. Like,
Speaker 1: if it were up to us, it would be banned. Yes,
Speaker 1: they suggested that it should be banned. Kids under the
Speaker 1: age of at least seven. I think the a p
Speaker 1: A said should not see ads directed towards them, But
Speaker 1: like I say, not up to them. They can only
Speaker 1: recommend and be laughed at corporations with hippies pocket on
Speaker 1: a commune hippie. Uh. So when it comes to nutrition,
Speaker 1: this is a really big deal. Um. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of advertisements for candy and junk food and fast
Speaker 1: food that are rammed down your kid's throat from a
Speaker 1: very early age, and there's been You can't provide a
Speaker 1: direct uh causation. Of course, everybody's like, give it to me,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of correlation that watching these commercials
Speaker 1: and seeing these ads, uh, correlates to your kid eating
Speaker 1: more of the stuff and maybe gaining weight and maybe
Speaker 1: affecting overall childhood obesity. Yeah. And again, remember the advertising
Speaker 1: on or the money spent on advertising to children in
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars, it went up to seventeen billion
Speaker 1: in two thousand, nine hundred millions. Yeah. Yeah, but even
Speaker 1: still I think, I think it was still considered kind
Speaker 1: of paltry. Ishi, I mean, especially if you adjust for inflation,
Speaker 1: it's still nothing like seventeen billion, right, And if you
Speaker 1: go back over time and look at the rates of
Speaker 1: childhood obesity, it tracks along the same the same UM graph.
Speaker 1: So it's one of the factors. Can we just say
Speaker 1: agree on that. Yeah, and uh. Studies have found also,
Speaker 1: so not only are your kids being exposed to a
Speaker 1: high percentage of the ads that they see are junk
Speaker 1: food ads, but it's we've also it's been shown that
Speaker 1: if you show kids junk food ads and adults to
Speaker 1: actually but it really works on kids, they will eat
Speaker 1: more junk food while they're watching the ads. It's basically,
Speaker 1: um what's called the priming effect. The kid will be
Speaker 1: sitting there seeing an ad for Twinkies. Well, there's no
Speaker 1: Twinkies in the house, but there's a box of twigs.
Speaker 1: I'll eat the box of twigs. And actually a box
Speaker 1: of twigs. If I used see a box of twigs,
Speaker 1: my mom would hide it around the house. So when
Speaker 1: I found him, I had to eat the whole thing
Speaker 1: because I knew that she'd find that I found them
Speaker 1: and hide them. Even better, you never knew where they
Speaker 1: were going to end up. That would just be eating
Speaker 1: them like a little fat squirrel. Uh. So it's two
Speaker 1: thousand and ninth study found that kids who watched a
Speaker 1: program with commercials um a more calories than the kids
Speaker 1: who watched the same program without commercials. So the actual
Speaker 1: presence of the commercials gets kids to eat more food.
Speaker 1: And the food that they usually have at hand and
Speaker 1: they're being primed to eat is junk food. Well here's
Speaker 1: a study, boy, this is study. Instead. I thought you'd
Speaker 1: like that. It's got my juice flawing kid. Uh. In Quebec,
Speaker 1: America's had one part of America's had, they have the
Speaker 1: opposite effect. They for the past thirty two years have
Speaker 1: banned fast food advertising geared towards children online and in print.
Speaker 1: And that providence says the least childhood obesity in Canada.
Speaker 1: It's actually it's even older than that. I said, correct
Speaker 1: that was that they and yeah, they just said no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: no more like America's pants. Uh they said no way
Speaker 1: a yeah, no, I come back, they said in French.
Speaker 1: She said no, okay mate, no, no, doc. But I mean,
Speaker 1: how can you look I know there are still other factors,
Speaker 1: of course, but how can you look at these statistics
Speaker 1: and not just run screaming down the street like a
Speaker 1: crazy person. I don't know, like companies are trying to
Speaker 1: make your kids fat? Yeah? Yeah, again, we come back
Speaker 1: to the Dorrito. The book should read it, because if
Speaker 1: you read it, it's like even with me. It's taken
Speaker 1: malicious intent off the table. It's more just like this
Speaker 1: is just the way it is. These people, these companies
Speaker 1: have products and they make money selling the products. So
Speaker 1: they're going to advertise the product. Your your kids going
Speaker 1: to love it, and if you don't want your kid
Speaker 1: to eat it, tell your kid no, you lazy parents.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, which we'll get into later. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: what we should point out to. This is not just
Speaker 1: in traditional advertising. Product placement has been booming for the
Speaker 1: past past decade for sure, but even before that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it really started in the eighties. But I
Speaker 1: mean it's really like product placement is like it's never
Speaker 1: been before. Uh. They did a study in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: Why has every study in the same at least eight
Speaker 1: years old? I couldn't find anything new or it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Gig Ridge came along and some cut off funding for it. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we can say everything's worse than these studies,
Speaker 1: then I would. I would guess in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight there were nearly thirty five thousand food, beverage and
Speaker 1: restaurant brands and primetime TV programming. And that's not in commercials.
Speaker 1: That's product placement. Yeah. Yeah, Apparently kids on average of
Speaker 1: a hundred coke product placements throughout the year. Uh during
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, that's about three to four a week.
Speaker 1: And that's just in a movie that you're watching, in
Speaker 1: a TV show that you're watching. That that's on top
Speaker 1: of all the ads that they're going. It's literally like indoctrination.
Speaker 1: So not only are your kids incapable of understanding what
Speaker 1: ads are, um, the ads are having a pronounced negative
Speaker 1: effect on their health. Is speaking through correlation, right. It's
Speaker 1: again there's no smoking gun that where some kid was
Speaker 1: like that oreo and just made me eat this oreo everybody,
Speaker 1: and then he was whisked off to John Hopkins to
Speaker 1: be raised in a cage for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: That has not happened yet. We can only hope one.
Speaker 1: But the correlation, uh is is definitely there. And they're
Speaker 1: also becoming more and more ubiquitous. Right. Um. So there
Speaker 1: was this Yale study from two twelve, Chuck, not that
Speaker 1: long ago. In two thousand and twelve, they looked at
Speaker 1: um fast food, fast food marketing to children, fast food
Speaker 1: advertising specifically, and they found um that McDonald's was far
Speaker 1: and away the biggest spender on advertising the kids, specifically
Speaker 1: with their Happy Meal brand, which is basically now a
Speaker 1: sub brand of McDonald's. The Happy Meal is I think
Speaker 1: I remember when the Happy Meal is invented. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the Happy Meal that was seventies or eighties, right, And
Speaker 1: it was not invented for adults. No, no, no. The
Speaker 1: toy tie ins Ronald McDonald's were not things that they
Speaker 1: developed to sell more hamburgers two adults or because the
Speaker 1: adults make the choice of where to go eat. It
Speaker 1: was for kids, right, It was a specific choice to
Speaker 1: sell more fast food to kids. Yeah. And in this
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve study, in just that year alone,
Speaker 1: um McDonald spent forty two million dollars on advertising just
Speaker 1: the Happy Meals in two thousand twelve. Here's one that'll
Speaker 1: shake you to the core. The average US child between
Speaker 1: two and eleven saw one hundred and eighty five Chicken
Speaker 1: McNugget Happy Meal commercials on TV last year hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty five ads for chicken McNuggets and then so that's
Speaker 1: a lot. But to really put in perspective, the number
Speaker 1: two advertiser to children for fast food was Burger King.
Speaker 1: They had a Kid's meal. Um kids saw an average
Speaker 1: of twenty three point four of those per year, not
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty five. Twenty three was the second
Speaker 1: place contestant, which is why Burger Kings never in first.
Speaker 1: They're not spending enough on advertising the kids. There's a
Speaker 1: Burger King execut of right now that just made like
Speaker 1: pulled over, made a note spend more. Uh. I remember
Speaker 1: how they got I don't. I'm sure they still do this.
Speaker 1: I haven't, like, I literally haven't looked at what a
Speaker 1: happy meal is. And it's nothing like kids. Remember it
Speaker 1: came in the box and like is it not it's
Speaker 1: in a bag, a paper bag? Is it a special bag?
Speaker 1: But like puzzles and you have to be a kid
Speaker 1: to really recognize it as special, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Where the boxes like it's its own thing. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a little gift. Um. But how they really got
Speaker 1: us back then, I don't know if they still do
Speaker 1: this is uh, you know collect all four they still
Speaker 1: do that. They do now it's like collect all sixteen.
Speaker 1: So it would be I remember some stupid little car
Speaker 1: that you would put a penny in. Oh, those were
Speaker 1: great penny racers. Yeah, and you would like pull it
Speaker 1: back and it would spin or something or Papa wheee
Speaker 1: or just take off like a rocket and collect all four.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's not even an enough, Like it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to not visualize the devil. And in
Speaker 1: an advertising room going like, yeah, well, we we can
Speaker 1: sell this this meal to kids more if we can
Speaker 1: include a toy, and some other guys saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: how about if there's four different toys and they have
Speaker 1: to go back four different times to get a different
Speaker 1: color each time. Yeah, And I remember the drive through
Speaker 1: people would be like, you got what you got, you
Speaker 1: have to go through and buy another Happy Meal. If
Speaker 1: you want a different you have to keep you weren't
Speaker 1: guaranteed to get that. Yeah. So yeah, way more than
Speaker 1: four trips to get your Happy Meal. What a time
Speaker 1: to be alive? Oh yeah yeah. Um so advertising has
Speaker 1: actually gone down and on on some ways kids kids
Speaker 1: by fractions of personage a little bit, yeah, but for
Speaker 1: the most part it's trending upward. And apparently there's um
Speaker 1: nowadays little tots that go on to websites to play.
Speaker 1: Some of these websites like happy meal dot com. Not
Speaker 1: to pick on McDonald's, but man, they definitely have spread
Speaker 1: it out enough so that they're a a an enormous
Speaker 1: part of this. Dude, McDonald's had a website for preschool
Speaker 1: children Ronald dot com. They shut it down finally, but
Speaker 1: they literally had a website for preschoolers. I know, it
Speaker 1: sounds like it was clown heavy happy happy meal dot
Speaker 1: com and two dozen twelve had a hundred thousand monthly uniques.
Speaker 1: I don't even think how stuff works has a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand monthly unique and happy meal dot com does, right,
Speaker 1: And these are little kids and they're going on and
Speaker 1: doing their thing, having a great time playing on happy
Speaker 1: meal dot com. But this whole website is one big ad, right,
Speaker 1: And even outside of happy meal dot Com, on other
Speaker 1: websites like cartoon network dot com or nick dot com,
Speaker 1: like Nickelodeon's website, you're going to see ad placements, banner
Speaker 1: ads or whatever kind of ads on these other websites
Speaker 1: for happy me. They're all over the place. Yeah. Of
Speaker 1: the top twenty five advertisers, nineteen of those twenty five
Speaker 1: increased advertising to preschoolers. Uh, Domino's Pizza. I guess they're
Speaker 1: more than pizza now, they're just Dominoes now. Kinds of stuff, right,
Speaker 1: Domino's increased advertising to children. I think when was this
Speaker 1: between two thousand nine two thousand twelve. Wendy's by and
Speaker 1: McDonald's is the only restaurant that advertises more to children
Speaker 1: than teens. Are adults more, they advertise more to kids,
Speaker 1: all right, hard to believe. Plus also there's I was
Speaker 1: looking at this, there's some apps now too, So beyond
Speaker 1: the websites, you can also download apps that again, if
Speaker 1: you're a kid, you're just playing, you're on the mic
Speaker 1: play app. But if you go onto the mic play app,
Speaker 1: so like their their toy giveaway. The big tie in
Speaker 1: now is the Trolls movie. It was recently, and you
Speaker 1: would get your troll character out of the happy Meal
Speaker 1: box and you would scan it with your phone and
Speaker 1: upload it onto your mcplay app, and you could make
Speaker 1: your troll character the little real one that you have
Speaker 1: in real life, go play in the troll game. And
Speaker 1: the mick play app was the troll game like McDonald's
Speaker 1: Wonderland or something. Yeah, but it's also the Trolls movie.
Speaker 1: So you're being like hit with this advertising, this joint advertising.
Speaker 1: God knows how much the Trolls production gave to McDonald's
Speaker 1: to host this whole thing. So there there's this. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the average ads are not even ads anymore, don't
Speaker 1: even websites anymore, they're games. I I don't mean to
Speaker 1: get worked up, it's just astounding like that, when you
Speaker 1: start digging in, you just feel like you're drowning. And
Speaker 1: I think once people listen to this, you start to
Speaker 1: notice things a little more around you. Like even reading
Speaker 1: the stuff over the past few days, I just start
Speaker 1: to see it everywhere all of a sudden, like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, some I'm paring out there was like Mick play,
Speaker 1: I get it, now, give me that phone. Uh. Here's
Speaker 1: something we mentioned earlier that is, um, well, you think
Speaker 1: that school would be the one place where your kids
Speaker 1: can go for eight or nine hours a day and
Speaker 1: escape this onslaught of advertising. But no schools are Uh.
Speaker 1: They have budget cuts increasingly across the country. And so
Speaker 1: who sweeps in but corporations to say, hey, we'd love
Speaker 1: to get a computer center for you. We'd hate for
Speaker 1: your school to fail. Yeah, so how about the new
Speaker 1: um uh Jack in the box computer center. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: Jack in the box be there to cut the ribbon
Speaker 1: on the first day. Well, sure you will. I think
Speaker 1: it will be homeless man dressed as Jack in the
Speaker 1: Box will be Well, every kid get a Jack in
Speaker 1: the box and tin ahead. Oh, I think they will. Uh.
Speaker 1: So that's what's happening is corporations that they either have
Speaker 1: partnerships or they have vending machine contracts. Um, and that
Speaker 1: you make I don't know where you got this particular part.
Speaker 1: This was very well put together, by the way, but um,
Speaker 1: they make the point here that you've got a captive audience.
Speaker 1: Kids are like prison. You're stuck there, can'tie there's a
Speaker 1: cop that's making sure they stay there. Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a cop in my schools, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they're They came along about my era. Okay, Um, we
Speaker 1: had our guy. He wasn't a cop, but he was
Speaker 1: the resource officer. Yeah, I don't know. We didn't call
Speaker 1: him that, just Barney five sort of. He just basically
Speaker 1: kind of walked around the parking lots with a billy
Speaker 1: batt looking for looking for kids smoking or or leaving
Speaker 1: in their car or doing whatever. I remember. He was
Speaker 1: always very easy to evade. Only so much ground you
Speaker 1: can cover as one single man, single board man um
Speaker 1: and this is before cell phones. Do I imagine that guy?
Speaker 1: Now it's just like park somewhere playing on this mcplay.
Speaker 1: I love this trolls again. Uh, but not only they
Speaker 1: are captive, but that it implies the endorsement of the
Speaker 1: teachers and the educational system, which is huge. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so much so that, Like I remember, we were
Speaker 1: talking about the Crest Cavity team, and I learned about
Speaker 1: like oral hygiene but those two words put together awful,
Speaker 1: by the way. But I learned that through Crest, right,
Speaker 1: and it came with free toothpaste and a tooth Crest
Speaker 1: toothbrush and all that. And there's like an activity book,
Speaker 1: and yes, I was learning about this stuff, but it
Speaker 1: was Crest sponsored. But in my little brain, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess my school that thinks Crest is great, therefore
Speaker 1: Crest is great, you know. Or they might come out
Speaker 1: and a bunch of out of work actors dressed up
Speaker 1: as the Crest Cavity team might make an appearance at
Speaker 1: your school. Yeah, if you go to like Hollywood High
Speaker 1: or something rich school, that's pretty funny. If you've ever
Speaker 1: seen Hollywood High, it's like not very rich looking. Nope,
Speaker 1: there's rich kids that go there, right, Dylan, And now
Speaker 1: that that was Beverly. That's what I mean. That's what
Speaker 1: I meant. Okay, that is a rich school. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: take you about Hollywood High next summer in l A
Speaker 1: get a lath it's right there in the middle of
Speaker 1: the town. I think, right next to the In and
Speaker 1: Out Burger. I'm not mistaken. Uh, that was Bukowski stumbling out.
Speaker 1: So what else are you gonna get in school? You
Speaker 1: might get a Craft healthy eating kit again, maybe trying
Speaker 1: to teach you about eating healthy, but got their logo
Speaker 1: and and products all over it. No more than five
Speaker 1: boxes of Kraft brand macaroni and cheese a day. What else? Um,
Speaker 1: there's exclusive contracts with companies. Were like your high schools
Speaker 1: a Coke high school. You're not gonna find a pepsi
Speaker 1: vending machine in this high school district, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and those are probably fairly lucrative. Straight up advertising on buses. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: we didn't have that when I was a kid, but
Speaker 1: apparently they do. Now, how about this a reading program? Uh? Book?
Speaker 1: It brought to you by Pizza? Hut? I did that?
Speaker 1: Did you? Oh man? Reading enough to get a free
Speaker 1: personal pants. Is that what the deal was. I was like,
Speaker 1: just give me some books. See. And that's the thing though,
Speaker 1: It's like they're incentivizing reading. That's a good thing, but
Speaker 1: incentivizing reading to eat their garbage food product. And it
Speaker 1: was like the focus of the summer to to to
Speaker 1: get to that point where you would get your free
Speaker 1: personal pan pizza certificate? Man, how did you prove that
Speaker 1: you read the books? I was an honor system. We
Speaker 1: were all very honorable kids, apparently. Uh, all right, should
Speaker 1: we take a break here, Yes, all right, we'll pause
Speaker 1: for this ad. The irony is not lost on enough.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, all right, Chuck. So, if this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is making your blood boil, some people
Speaker 1: out there totally understand it. Are saying, hey, man, we
Speaker 1: live in a capitalist country. Should be able to advertise
Speaker 1: the kids. You've got a product, to sell, sell it
Speaker 1: the best way you can. Okay. Other people out there
Speaker 1: are just so mad, they're trembling in their barking stocks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's actually not that's terrible. Uh, they're just uh, they're
Speaker 1: just upset at the thought of all this, right, and
Speaker 1: it does seem very overwhelming and unfair. Um, and for
Speaker 1: a while. Now in the US, we've got a long
Speaker 1: standing tradition of groups coming up and trying to fight
Speaker 1: the advertisers, getting almost somewhere and then failing. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: the history of it here. Yeah, we talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about this in the Action Figures podcast. UM, and
Speaker 1: we'll go over some of it right now again the
Speaker 1: well remember that inspired this episode. Yeah. Uh. Nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: the f c C Communications Commission, Um, they said, you
Speaker 1: know what, we should ban advertising to young kids. But
Speaker 1: they said, all right, well, maybe we shouldn't completely ban it.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should just limit it and limit the kinds
Speaker 1: of how much they see in the kind of things
Speaker 1: you can say and do right, specifically hosts selling like
Speaker 1: Ms Francis in her little Ding Dong hour, stopping and
Speaker 1: selling something that was off limits. Now, that's right. Then
Speaker 1: later on in the late nineteen seventies, UM, they once again,
Speaker 1: the f TC, this time considered banning all the advertising
Speaker 1: the kids, citing all the evidence that's always been out
Speaker 1: there all over the place that in the direction that
Speaker 1: kids can't tell the difference and unfairly takes advantage. UM.
Speaker 1: And Congress said, well wait a minute, now, we we helped.
Speaker 1: We we got here based largely on you know, Crest.
Speaker 1: They got deep pockets and they funded us as a whole,
Speaker 1: our congressional election campaigns. Right. Uh. So they stopped it.
Speaker 1: They put a stop to the FTC and the FCC said, fine, fine,
Speaker 1: do what you want your Congress, but we're going to
Speaker 1: take a parting shot saying if you look even cursorily
Speaker 1: at the at the medical literature on kids in advertising,
Speaker 1: you will see that this is wrong and it's a
Speaker 1: public concern and should remain that way. And this is
Speaker 1: on you and they who cares. Uh. And you talked
Speaker 1: about groups popping up, there's one called Actions for Children's
Speaker 1: Television Act, founded in nineteen sixty eight by Evelyn Sarson
Speaker 1: and Peggy Charin Sharin char she's the boat keeper on
Speaker 1: the river sticks, the guy, the boat rower who would
Speaker 1: row you over to the world. Yeah, I believe so,
Speaker 1: oh man, I hope so. Uh. I thought it was
Speaker 1: um old skippy. I mean, if you knew him, you'd
Speaker 1: call him that if you were a neighbor boy. Um.
Speaker 1: They're a big deal now, uh, twenty thousand members. But
Speaker 1: back in the day, when they were just getting going,
Speaker 1: they were a pretty small little grassroots unit and Romper Room,
Speaker 1: of all things, was squarely in their sights at first. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the first ones they took on, Romper Room
Speaker 1: was like the least harmful, nicest show ever. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I did too. Um, isn't that what Mr green Jeans
Speaker 1: was on? That was Captain Kinger. Oh, yeah, you're right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember Romper Room then, I just remember I
Speaker 1: loved it. Romper Room was one that had the magic
Speaker 1: magic mirror, and at the end of the episode, the
Speaker 1: lady would look into the mirror and say like, I
Speaker 1: see Joh, Should I see Jerry? You just sit there
Speaker 1: and being like, oh, my name and I didn't get
Speaker 1: many chucks? So did you say, Charles? Did you count
Speaker 1: yourself for that? I don't remember. It was sort of
Speaker 1: that feeling you get when you go to the anything
Speaker 1: that had like the names printed key chains with the
Speaker 1: little license plates, and it was always like, why is
Speaker 1: it my name Mike or Josh? Yeah, I'll just go
Speaker 1: with the number one astronaut one, the generic one, not
Speaker 1: the chuck is so random. But I didn't see it
Speaker 1: a ton. Sure you don't hear a lot of chucks
Speaker 1: these days. My name is out of fashion. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. It's it's not though it's a retro. I'll
Speaker 1: take it. Um So, what did they do with Romper Room?
Speaker 1: They said, your host selling. Yeah, apparently they had their
Speaker 1: own line of toys. And one of the things was
Speaker 1: I guess she'd look in the mirror and say, I
Speaker 1: see this brand new line of toys that you're gonna buy,
Speaker 1: and the a C he said, hey, this is against
Speaker 1: the rules. And they didn't even go to the FEC.
Speaker 1: They went to the station that produced Trumper Room and
Speaker 1: knock it off. Yeah, we're made, and they listened to him.
Speaker 1: That was I think their first real victory. Uh. So
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, we talked about in the action figures when
Speaker 1: this is when things got real in the eighties. When
Speaker 1: Reagan specifically appointed Mark Fowler as Commissioner of the f SEC,
Speaker 1: everything changed. Yeah. Because Reagan he liked the regulation, sure,
Speaker 1: he believed in free markets, uh and he appointed Fowler,
Speaker 1: who believed in free markets just as much as Reagan did.
Speaker 1: Fowler had a um A saying as the FCC chairman,
Speaker 1: which is pretty rich frankly, because the FEC had long
Speaker 1: been tasked with basically overseeing broadcasting for the public interests. Right.
Speaker 1: It's one of the big reasons why UM broadcasters got licensed.
Speaker 1: They had to like have public interest programming certain amount
Speaker 1: of week. UM they were looking they were supposed to
Speaker 1: be looking out for people, right, And Mark Fowler said
Speaker 1: the public interest would be decided by the public's interest,
Speaker 1: meaning that if somebody started doing something nefarious under this
Speaker 1: deregulation where the government wasn't paying attention anymore, well, then
Speaker 1: people would stop watching that network and they would go
Speaker 1: under the market would decide it. And advertising to children
Speaker 1: fell squarely into this this purview or this this worldview
Speaker 1: of his. Yeah. And between nineteen four and nineteen five,
Speaker 1: and this is what we touched on in the Action
Speaker 1: Figure show was cartoons featuring license characters increased by three
Speaker 1: hundred percent. It became the new Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think there almost were none that didn't have a
Speaker 1: tie in. No, there was there. Yeah, and before that,
Speaker 1: just a couple years before, there was none that did
Speaker 1: because there was a rule against what are called program
Speaker 1: length commercials, which was what Jem was and My Little
Speaker 1: Pony and pac Man and and ThunderCats and he Man,
Speaker 1: all of them were these these shows that were created
Speaker 1: to sell the products, and they tied into the products
Speaker 1: and it was just like open season on little kids minds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're you loved he Man, right, Sure. I
Speaker 1: definitely did an ThunderCats, Jason the Wheel Warriors, like all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I was just a total sucker for Smurfs,
Speaker 1: although I don't think Smurf's I think they started out
Speaker 1: as an actual cartoon and then like their whole product
Speaker 1: line was launched as a result. Six months later, they
Speaker 1: were like, weren't we selling these things? I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you that. Uh In f CC finally had some
Speaker 1: rules pushed through that limited the airtime to ten point
Speaker 1: five minutes per hour on weekends in twelve minutes per
Speaker 1: hour and weekdays for kids, programming and host selling was
Speaker 1: officially prohibited. Yeah, that was the Children's Children's Television Act,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. They also the idea of having to
Speaker 1: break for commercials with we'll be right back or now
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor that came out of that
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, although I seem to remember it before
Speaker 1: maybe not. All right, So you mentioned earlier that other
Speaker 1: countries are doing this, Um, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK,
Speaker 1: they all have regulations on stuff like this. Yeah. By
Speaker 1: doing this, you mean actually doing something, yes, yeah, correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a whole spectrum, right, Yeah, that has to do
Speaker 1: with how a country approaches advertising to children. The US
Speaker 1: actually represents one radical end of it, which is actually nothing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the other end, there's countries that have banned it,
Speaker 1: like Quebec, which again is a province, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: also occupied countries. Uh in Norway and Sweden. Big surprise there,
Speaker 1: Nordic countries coming in there, swinging the bat of justice, right,
Speaker 1: swinging the rack of justice. They completely banned marketing the
Speaker 1: children under the age of twelve in those countries, right.
Speaker 1: And then a little more in the middle, you've got
Speaker 1: like the UK and Australia, where there's far more regulations
Speaker 1: than there is in the US, but there's also a
Speaker 1: large measure of self regulation among the industry too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was really hardened to hear that in the UK.
Speaker 1: A lot of these aren't necessarily laws. They're just sort
Speaker 1: of unspoken rules among advertisers that you don't uh suggests
Speaker 1: that a child is lacking in loyalty, or you don't
Speaker 1: encourage them to pest or their parents or I mean
Speaker 1: that's a big one, you know, like a commercial that
Speaker 1: shows a kid like, mom, can I have this? Right?
Speaker 1: There was this um oh, I think it was like
Speaker 1: Itchy and Scratchy was up for an Emmy on The
Speaker 1: Simpsons once or something, and they were showing the other
Speaker 1: cartoons that it was up against in the category for
Speaker 1: Best Animated Special, and one of them was like the
Speaker 1: Action Man Holiday Special how to buy Action Man, And
Speaker 1: this showed some kid go, I want it and the
Speaker 1: parent looks at the boxes like it's a pretty it's
Speaker 1: basically right there. Yeah. Another one in England they say
Speaker 1: you don't make a child feel inferior, unpopular for not
Speaker 1: buying a product. Yeah, that's a big one too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And apparently these are just things that they think are
Speaker 1: decent that you shouldn't do, because I remember too. Like
Speaker 1: with with advertising, I don't remember seeing too many like
Speaker 1: Polo ads. I was very much aware of Polo, but
Speaker 1: I also knew that Polo was a great brand because
Speaker 1: my peers knew it was a great brand. Right, So
Speaker 1: there's that peer pressure that starts from a young age,
Speaker 1: especially with things like clothing. So did to remove that
Speaker 1: out of the equation a little bit by not letting
Speaker 1: average tisers like make a kid feel smaller inferior for
Speaker 1: not buying a product. I wonder how much it mitigates
Speaker 1: that at all. Yeah, hopefully some you know, our own
Speaker 1: TV show might not have come around if that hadn't
Speaker 1: have been for the conscience of our director and leader.
Speaker 1: What do you mean Chad? Our director was he went
Speaker 1: and started his production company because he was an ad
Speaker 1: dude and he was on set one day. I remember
Speaker 1: telling me the story selling a doing a commercial for
Speaker 1: a garbage junk food product for kids, and was just
Speaker 1: like I had one of those moments. He's like, what
Speaker 1: am I doing? What am I doing? My life? And
Speaker 1: he quit it, quit his job and went and started
Speaker 1: his own production company. H to where they make as
Speaker 1: Now I'm just kidding, that's why I started it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nice where you go? Chad? Yeah, he developed, he didn't
Speaker 1: develop a conscience. He had a conscience and it was
Speaker 1: agitated and it was agitated. It's pretty Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: our TV show came, uh what about online? That's the
Speaker 1: big sort of new brave, new not so brave new world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like those apps who were talking about Yeah, they're like
Speaker 1: all over the place, right, Yeah, they're all over the place.
Speaker 1: But they're also they're interactive. So your kid is actively
Speaker 1: participating in something that has to do with the brain
Speaker 1: on the couch. Yeah right, But they're interacting with that brand,
Speaker 1: you know, in their in their head. They're also immersed
Speaker 1: into a branded environment for long periods of time. Plus also, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of the advertising, if not a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of it, is um targeted. Right. They're using metadata based
Speaker 1: on the your kids other play habits, search history, other
Speaker 1: apps that's downloaded where your kid lives, any demographic information
Speaker 1: they can get to make the add like even more
Speaker 1: targeted to him that works on its Yeah, I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: It must be like utter magic on a kid. I'll
Speaker 1: buy you can be like, watch, I'll make that kid
Speaker 1: get off the couch right now, watch this. I'll send
Speaker 1: him this ad. The kid gets off the couch and
Speaker 1: goes to the fridge. You know. Yeah, there's a very
Speaker 1: Truman Show element to it. Yeah, it seems like um,
Speaker 1: but then again, you you like you said, you hear
Speaker 1: the companies and the food industry and people saying there's
Speaker 1: just consumer demand. It's up to the parents like, say no,
Speaker 1: don't let your child pester you into buying something, be
Speaker 1: a good parent. And that's definitely that seems to be
Speaker 1: their position. The counter to that is, well, if you
Speaker 1: guys think that the parent really has any kind of
Speaker 1: say over this, how why are you spending eighteen billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year advertising directly to children. Why don't you
Speaker 1: spend that money on me? They're like, oh, we like
Speaker 1: a good fight, right, we don't like money like the
Speaker 1: way we're trying to be see a good competitive situation.
Speaker 1: Plus also, these these um the advertisers have a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of our when they're going directly to a kid
Speaker 1: to go around the parent and apparent it's any parent
Speaker 1: just by definition as harried as far as a human
Speaker 1: being goes, right, So they don't have time necessarily to
Speaker 1: keep up with everything their kids watching, encounter every argument
Speaker 1: and every pester session that their kid comes at them with,
Speaker 1: and advertisers know that, and it's it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: that's unfair as well. Yeah, it was a lot easier
Speaker 1: back in the day to regulate and monitor what kind
Speaker 1: of content your children were made available to because you
Speaker 1: had TV and there were three channels you know pretty much. Um,
Speaker 1: and there was something called outside. Yeah, alright, so how
Speaker 1: you combat this? Well, again, if you can find time
Speaker 1: in your harried life, there are some techniques that you
Speaker 1: can use, apparently magically talking to your kid. Yeah. Kids
Speaker 1: are smart, Yeah, they unless it comes to discerning ads.
Speaker 1: We always joke about dumb kids, and that's always a
Speaker 1: joke because kids are very very smart. Kids get things.
Speaker 1: And if you talk to your kids about what buying
Speaker 1: things means, and what advertising is and the difference between
Speaker 1: wants and needs and how marketing works, like on very
Speaker 1: basic levels, you can have these discussions from an early
Speaker 1: agents and um, the value of of spending smartly. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's actually there's a tech. There's something. There's a
Speaker 1: concept called media literacy. And up until fairly recently, this
Speaker 1: was the prescription for combating advertising the kids, among parents,
Speaker 1: and it was exactly what you just described, sitting down
Speaker 1: explaining them like why do you why do you want that?
Speaker 1: Do you want it? Do you need it? Um? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like what is there something better that's less expensive or
Speaker 1: the same thing that's less expensive, and just teaching them
Speaker 1: that that's media literacy, and it's teaching them to create
Speaker 1: a cynical filter that when they're being advertised to they're
Speaker 1: being manipulated and they need to take it with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt. And then you have to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what a grain of salt means, to take
Speaker 1: a step backwards, right. Cynicals is such a bad word,
Speaker 1: though it's maybe discerning. That's another word for sure. The
Speaker 1: problem is is people like the Campaign for a Commercial
Speaker 1: Free Childhood says, again, what you're doing is teaching kids
Speaker 1: to be good consumers. You're focusing on consumerism. You're teaching
Speaker 1: them everything there is to know about consumerism. Let's just
Speaker 1: remove kids from the equation of our consumerism. So media
Speaker 1: literacy has kind of fallen out of favor in the
Speaker 1: last few years. Yeah, I mean it may be impossible.
Speaker 1: That's the conclusion I came to, Like, our kids aren't
Speaker 1: living our childhood life, and you can't expect that, you know, No,
Speaker 1: it's and it's true. Like if you're like, no you
Speaker 1: can't watch TV, or no you can't play video games,
Speaker 1: or no you can't like use your YouTube app or whatever,
Speaker 1: like would your kid have anything in common with any
Speaker 1: of his her peers. I wanted you to be a
Speaker 1: complete outcast. Yeah, an interesting one, but no one will
Speaker 1: know how interesting and charming you are because they won't
Speaker 1: talk to you. Yeah, they're like, but just wait when
Speaker 1: you're in your thirties, you're really gonna blossom, Like what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a four oh one k already? Yeah,
Speaker 1: no thanks, You're gonna be a real catch. Uh. Setting
Speaker 1: limits on this exposure is is obviously kind of a
Speaker 1: no brainer. Screen time and phones and gaming and internet
Speaker 1: and all the things are inundated with um and limiting
Speaker 1: your own screen time it's that's a big one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's tough to tell the kid. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: constantly staring at your telephone as a parent, you know
Speaker 1: you can't see that stuff. Shut up, Barney Miller's on
Speaker 1: on your phone. Yeah, I guarantee you can find where
Speaker 1: your own Barney Miller on a phone some way. Well,
Speaker 1: my Barney Miller app doesn't feature full length shows. Oh
Speaker 1: it doesn't, just video clips, just clips. And there's a
Speaker 1: game too. It's fun Mcbarney Miller. Um what else? Apparently
Speaker 1: there's a book called The Barren Stain Bears Get the Gimmis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you read that one? I don't remember that one.
Speaker 1: I read the barren Stein Bears get the gimmis. Okay,
Speaker 1: well this is at an alternate universe. Uh no, I
Speaker 1: never heard of that one. Apparently it's all about teaching.
Speaker 1: It's it's teaching kids how to um not be a
Speaker 1: little brat's right, and to just chill out and be
Speaker 1: happy with your two sticks that your parents gave you
Speaker 1: to rub together. Uh. This last one or this last
Speaker 1: bit I think was pretty interesting on how to how
Speaker 1: to be involved in what they're watching. The three ways
Speaker 1: co viewing it just means you're not even discussing it.
Speaker 1: You're just sitting there and watching it with them like menacingly,
Speaker 1: menacing overlord. Just cross your arms and look at them. Everyone,
Speaker 1: So just relax. Do you feel like you should be
Speaker 1: watching this? Active mediation or instructive guidance is when you
Speaker 1: are watching and discussing things and saying, you know, like
Speaker 1: what we're talking about talking about these ads or whatever
Speaker 1: the content is. And then there's restrictive mediation, which is
Speaker 1: you can't watch that. Yeah, And apparently active and restrictive
Speaker 1: mediation has been shown to decrease kids asking for stuff,
Speaker 1: which is ultimately what the parent wants it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't care how b should get. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to hear you ask for another thing. That's what we're
Speaker 1: really after. If you get thin as a byproduct, great,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I don't think so either. Oh.
Speaker 1: I did think this final bit was pretty interesting that
Speaker 1: you had in here that um they found that things
Speaker 1: the tactics to sell kids junk food have the same effect.
Speaker 1: So if you put carrots and celery and McDonald's rapper,
Speaker 1: the kids are going to be more apt to eat
Speaker 1: it than if you just gave them carrots and cellery.
Speaker 1: Though that's frightening, and I guess good, I guess, But
Speaker 1: again it goes to that heart of that thing where
Speaker 1: it's like you're just teaching kids. McDonald says, eat these carrots,
Speaker 1: not carrots are great in and of themselves. All right,
Speaker 1: Well that's advertising. The kids make of it what you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go walk out into traffic. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more about advertising to kids, well dig
Speaker 1: into the internet, because it's all over the place. I
Speaker 1: found a great site called the PBS Kids Don't Buy It,
Speaker 1: and it teaches kids how to discern ads at a
Speaker 1: younger age. It's neat you might want to start there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And since I said PBS kids, it's time for listener. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this first time writer from a new listener. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: new listener, first time writer. My boss used to work
Speaker 1: for Kinner in the eighties and the early nineties had
Speaker 1: some interesting tidbits about Star Wars toys. Kinner had a
Speaker 1: robin Hood Prince of Thieves collection, remember with the weird accent,
Speaker 1: that kind of it was a little British sometimes a
Speaker 1: little southern California kind of came and went. I have
Speaker 1: to say that I love that movie. When it came out.
Speaker 1: It's terrible, but it wasn't as good as Men in Tights. Oh,
Speaker 1: I remember robin Hood and Point Break came out that
Speaker 1: same summer. Yeah, I don't know why I remember that.
Speaker 1: It shoul remember him either. Whatever the heck of a summer.
Speaker 1: Uh of the robin Hood Prince of Thieves line was repurposed.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine why. Uh into the rerun of Return
Speaker 1: of the Jedi and at the time New Power of
Speaker 1: the Force line of toys, most notable, the Sherwood Forest
Speaker 1: Place set was simply rebranded the Ewok village and the
Speaker 1: robin Hood Battlewagon. Uh was altered slightly in the Ewok Battlewagon.
Speaker 1: It's pretty smart when you think about it. They're all
Speaker 1: forest bandits. Um. Also, there was one figure of the
Speaker 1: robin Hood line. That one figure that was reported repurposed
Speaker 1: from the original eighty three Return of the Jedi line.
Speaker 1: The Friar Tuck action figure was a more smooth out
Speaker 1: version of the Gamorian Guard, the pig like guard in
Speaker 1: Java's Palace, remember, with a new head plopped on. That
Speaker 1: sounds about right. I had another listeners send in um
Speaker 1: a video of Rick Springfield's Star Wars collection that No,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet, dude, I saw the email,
Speaker 1: haven't seen the video. Rick Springfield is the most avid
Speaker 1: collectors of Star Wars figures, Like he literally has one
Speaker 1: of a kind figure, the only known one in the
Speaker 1: world he has. Is it that Boba fette with the
Speaker 1: missile launch? He does? He has several of those? Apparently
Speaker 1: He's like I used those toilet paper. Um. Yeah, everyone's
Speaker 1: while just up, but um, it was. I was impressed
Speaker 1: and he was. He's like from the time I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I collected him and I, uh, it was
Speaker 1: a little bit older when the Star Wars things came out,
Speaker 1: Like he always collected things, but when Star Wars came out,
Speaker 1: he was older, so he started not opening them because
Speaker 1: he was over playing with them. But he really just
Speaker 1: loved the packaging. I thought they were beautiful and cool
Speaker 1: and has this amazing collection. How do you recommend? Just
Speaker 1: YouTube Rick Springfield Star Wars. There's some really big Star
Speaker 1: Wars magine there too. There. It's very jealous of Rick Springfield, right,
Speaker 1: did I had Ricky's collection? All right? Anyway? That was
Speaker 1: from He just says, cheers from Cincinnati, Ohio. That doesn't count.
Speaker 1: That's dup. Well, thank you anonymous listener who apparently he's
Speaker 1: worried about being fired for revealing Kenner Cincinnata. If you
Speaker 1: want to get into to this, you can tweak to
Speaker 1: us at Well. You can hang out with me at
Speaker 1: Josh M Clark on Twitter. You can also go to
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can hang with Chuck
Speaker 1: at Charles W. Chuck Bryant and at Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
Speaker 1: email the Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
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