Marketing consultant MC Milker blogs at The Not Quite Crunchy Parent. Before blogging, and before becoming not quite crunchy, she spent 20 years in the corporate world, marketing products like toys, food, and school supplies to kids and parents.

She reports here on the Consumer Electronics Show. Also see The Sandbox Summit – A Not-Quite-Crunchy Look at a Major Trade Show Event, D is for Digital – A Report from the Sandbox, and Toys in the Sandbox – New Digital Toys at CES. 

D is for Digital, a report released at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, confirms parents’ worst fears about video games marketed as educational. The study by the respected Joan Ganz Cooney Center found less than 3 percent of the games studied were based on educational curriculum.

Educational toys (including video games) is a $1.1 billion segment of the $22 billion toy industry and the fastest growing one, according to Playthings magazine.

Sadly, it is an unregulated one. Manufacturers must abide by “truth in advertising” laws but as no standards exist for educational claims and those made by electronic toy manufacturer remain largely unsubstantiated. 

Though some companies such as LeapFrog, Hooked On Phonics and Knowledge Adventure do devote sections of their Web sites to describing research and impact studies, such research is not widely available or documented.

And the voice of reason is often drowned out. Though child development experts and prestigious organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend no screen time for children under two, the infant and preschool market for electronics has exploded in the past few years. Despite an alarming rate of attention issues noted by teachers and rising childhood obesity, American children still sit in front of a screen, TV, computer, and increasingly the myriad of handhelds and game consoles, an average of 5 hours per day — well more than the amount recommended by experts.

And still the category of products keeps growing.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Foundation recognizes that parents have no way of knowing whether or not a game or toy marketed as “educational’ really is:

Without firm and independently verified standards of educational value, how is a typical parent or educator able to discern if the multitude of products in the marketplace live up to their claims?

And has these recommendations:

Federal regulatory bodies such as the Federal Trade Commission, voluntary industry groups such as The Better Business Bureau, and parent advocates such as Common Sense Media should collaborate on a consumer protection initiative to better describe educational effectiveness in interactive media products for children.

Until then — caveat emptor.

More from other attendees at the Sandbox Summit:

The Daily Mom
YPulse
Media Minds
 

A better shopping experience is coming to a store near you via the exciting, reliable, and safe TV Kart.

The shopping cart, developed by Cabco in New Zealand, has a special child’s seat with a “steering wheel, interactive buttons on the dashboard, and a 7-inch TV monitor on which children watch selected TV programs.”

(Cool 3-D presentation of the TV Kart here.)

The purpose of the TV Kart is, of course, to keep your children entertained while you are trudging through your weekly shopping. 

The cart caught my eye because I think it is a great example of a common question I hear: What’s so wrong with having a little peace and quiet while shopping? (Variation A: What’s wrong with buying Disney Princess toothpaste? Now my daughter loves to brush her teeth! Variation B: What’s wrong with watching a Bob the Builder video? It teaches cooperation!) 

And the answer is: Nothing. There is nothing wrong with any one of these things. Individually.

But unfortunately, marketers make sure that kids are not just targeted a single time. Or twice. Or eight hundred times. A day. 

So your child is sitting in their TV Kart, watching Dora the Explorer, which, by itself, is a fine show for kids. But what happens when you hit the ice cream aisle and your child glances over and sees the Dora ice cream?

Nickelodeon, who owns Dora, has a $3 billion consumer products division and 150 licensing partners. Nickelodeon characters are sold through “every channel of retails distribution.” And Nickelodeon Recreation reaches 22 million consumers annually through theme parks and hotels.

And what about the research on children and screen time?

– Early exposure to television (at ages one and three) is related to attention problems at age seven;
– Television viewing affects sleep efficiency in school-age children;
– Excessive television viewing is associated with overweight preschoolers; and
– Excessive television viewing has an adverse affect on long-term educational achievement.

Wouldn’t stores who really care about the well-being of families use carts that, say, have puzzles built into them? Or perhaps offer a stack of books when you walk in?

Of course, it’s not just the kids that the advertisers are after:

New technology in TV Kart will allow powerful mobile advertising and promotional messages to be presented directly to shoppers as they make their product selection. These messages will be played to them from a new 7 inch monitor while their children are still happily entertained, on the inside of the TV Kart, watching their favorite programs from the monitor inside the TV Kart.

Here’s something to do with your young child next time you are shopping: Count the number of times you spot Dora on a product. Or Shrek. Or Scooby-Doo. Explain to your child that corporations do that so little kids like them will want to buy something that they really don’t need (and is, more than likely, bad for them). Tell them that they are smarter than the corporations.

And you are, too.

It’s not just lead: fifteen hundred popular children’s toys tested for toxic chemicals are ranked in a new searchable online database, thanks in part to Minnesota’s own Healthy Legacy.

HealthyToys.org includes information on how the tests were conducted, chemicals to be concerned about, and lists of best and worst toys.

From the press release:

While some toys had high levels of dangerous chemicals such as PVC, lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury, others were free of these harmful additives. [Consumers] can now easily search by product name, brand, or toy type . . . to learn how the products tested rank from highest to lowest in terms of harmful chemical content.

Forty percent of the toys tested contained no toxins. It is possible to make safe toys. Even in China. We just have to ask for them and choose them over chemical-laden cheaper toys.

Here in Minnesota, Parents for Ethical Marketing will support the healthy children’s products bill (and other legislation) which will be introduced during the 2008 session. The bill calls for phasing out phthalates and bisphenol-A, two hormone disrupting chemicals from children’s products.

More evidence of the relationship between materialism and low self-esteem in children and teens comes from University of Minnesota just down the street.

From “Growing up in a Material World: Age Differences in Materialism in Children and Adolescents” (Lan Nguyen Chaplin and Deborah Roedder John):

For many constituents, the key question is what can be done to diminish materialism among children and adolescents? The ideas receiving the most attention appear to be those centered around placing constraints on media and advertising exposure—such as bans on advertising to children, bans on corporate marketing in public schools, and parental limits on TV exposure. Our results suggest that strategies aimed at increasing self-esteem among tweens and adolescents would be effective. In fact, we found a simple selfesteem manipulation to be so powerful among adolescents that it decreased their focus on material goods to the level of much younger children.

That’s good news, as it confirms that parents and educators have the power to help kids.

Still, I can’t help but ask, why is it a battle to help maintain our children’s self-esteem? Don’t corps have any social responsibility here?

Related (in a new-researchy way): Media violence “significantly increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively.”

The only [threat to public health] effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer . . . .

photo courtesy cedar