Good news and bad news, or, is this really what it takes to sell candy to kids?
Bad news first: What must a company do to get children to buy candy?
When I was a kid, we took our nickels to Dick’s Food Market to choose between bubble gum, Tootsie Pops, or chocolate! And that was it! None of these fancy branded candy products for us!
OK, so I may be exaggerating. Slightly.
So, what did it take for this company to be able to write this press release headline: Candy Dynamics Celebrates Substantial Growth in Distribution and Sales of Their Innovative Toxic Waste Brand?
It took:
– significant investments in print advertising in kid-directed magazines (Nickelodeon and Disney Adventures),
– product sampling at theme parks, summer camps, movie theaters, and festivals,
– ongoing monthly and seasonally themed radio promotions,
– sponsorship of MTV Power Girls tween stars The Gemz summer and fall tours,
– pro-environment initiatives like the Toxic Takedown Challenge™,
– re-designing the website into a free-for-all of fun and environmental information.
Yowza. Words like kid-directed, tween, and initiatives are what put me on a yellow threat level. I mean orange. How do we eliminate, or at least lessen, the pervasiveness of advertising in our kids’ lives if that’s what it takes for a small company (like Candy Dynamics) to make it?
Candy Dynamics is promoting their brand, Toxic Waste – a candy so sour you can barely keep it in your mouth — as a friend to the environment. They use recycled or recyclable materials in their packaging, and according to their president, Karen Windle-Burcham,
In having named our sour candy line Toxic Waste, we are hoping to strike a chord with kids and their parents that will motivate them to act upon the issues behind this name.
I’m intrigued by this idea, although they have a ways to go to make that connection apparent (on their website, at least).
Now the good news: PEM has been contacted by an advertising/marketing/branding/whatever agency and they are asking: What do parents want? And how can we help corporations move in that direction?
Seems that developing channels of communication to corporations aligns quite well with PEM’s mission to encourage them to adopt responsible marketing practices. I will keep you updated.
Photo courtesy Jeff Adair.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
You KNOW, as a marketer and parent I have to chime in here!
Now this is a great question - what do parents want?
Do they want marketers to not use marketing tactics to target kids?
Do they want companies to just produce products and try to get distribution for them without any marketing plan (won’t happen)?
This is really a messy issue and it’s no wonder marketers and parents are confused. What parents would like - only healthy, good-for-you products on the shelf…without being advertised…so parents can make their own decisions…could happen but then we would have no kids TV shows (no kids advertising to support them); few kids movies ( no licensing and product placement to bring in bucks; very expensive toys/candy/snacks since everything would be small runs - much more expensive to make each toy/piece of candy, etc.
None of these is necessarily bad….just probably unrealistic. I do think that there needs to be some government regulation but I also do not have a problem with companies that are being responsible and producing healthy for mind or body products for kids using solid marketing tactics to sell their product.
This is actually where I’d like to see this whole thing going - without getting too off track - bert’s Bees bought by Clorox could be a good thing…the marketing power that Clorox has brings a healthier, more eco freindly product to more people…let’s do that with kids products too1
February 1st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I see on their Web site that Toxic Challenge is an “exciting novelty candy.”
Zuckerman Maxim 21 is that if something is marketed as exciting, it probably isn’t. I give it about a year.
Still, it has “motivated me to act upon the issues behind this name.” I’ve decided that toxic waste is a really, really, really bad thing, and they should do something about it.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
@MC, you’ve hit on something here, which is that the type of product being marketed — there’s a big difference between a sturdy wooden puzzle and a plastic, candy filled wand. It seem to me that the corps with the big ad budgets are also the ones who are turning out more and more unnecessay products. There’s a line there, somewhere, between products that sustain healthy kids/families and those that don’t. Those products close to the line may go one way for one parent and another way for another. But there are extremes out there that are worthy of attention, and those are the ones I would like to focus on.
@Jeff, I know, the press release was written in typical corporate-speak. Pretty bad.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
The Toxic Waste is using similar marketing spin to the Green Slimes and Toxic Avengers of earlier years (though the Toxic Avenger was an… interesting cult film, at least). It’s amazing how many hoops they jump through to sell sugar, flavor, and in some cases fat.
Mostly off topic… How many parents are bringing their kids to the advertising festival tonight?
February 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Lisa,
It’s really a shame that the big marketers are stuck in a rut where, because they have so much market share, a tiny movement means millions of dollars. the best way to get these tiny movements is though a continually changing series of marketing and advertising programs.
Every marketer is judged on growth…grow your brand…grow your career. Growth can be achieved without marketing to children the way we deplore here but it takes a corporate mindset change…one I hope we see soon.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
@MC, you’ve just introduced tomorrow’s post for me!
February 8th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Kudos to you both…it’s unrealistic to think of ‘no marketing to kids’ (sorry, CCFC./Susan et al…you know I’m a realist and with MC on this one) …
And Lisa, I agree that we can’t have ‘eyeballs’ on everything…sadly, that’s where the Target story blew up and bit us (er…more me, somehow?) in the backside…In other words, it got skewed into a ’so what’ snapshot, easy to shrug off in ‘meh, I’ve seen much worse’ mode than to read the actual post for context and put it in proper framing of the OVERALL surround sound objectification we see daily…
btw…That reminds me, did you read they’re having a similar brouhaha in the U.K. over a girl’s bed/furniture line named…Lolita? Yah. Woolworth’s claims cluelessness and a ‘mistake’…but once again… sigh.
http://www.namedevelopment.com/blog/archives/2008/02/woolworths_loli.html
I’m not even ready to get back in the ring on that one… I’d like to think there’s either a ‘generation gap’ in play, or core cultural competency lacking (hey, the book was written long ago, maybe now to some it just means ’sexy’ or Gothic Lolita tween fashion in Japan rather than jailbait, or a ‘let’s see if it slides by’ client approval desensitization…or some layered offering of all of the above)–
But it still comes down to…’C'mon folks, what are we putting out there in media messaging…can’t we do better?
As for the ‘What do parents want?’ question? To not have to feel like we’re going to battle for our kids’ hearts and minds every freakin’ day we get up in the morning…Some modicum of peace and a tad of mindfulness in marketing. That’s all we ask. Not much, really…