Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds - Hardcover

Thomas, Susan Gregory

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618463518 ISBN 13: 9780618463510

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007

Synopsis

An investigative journalist analyzes the diverse ways in which marketers and promoters exploit infants and toddlers and the potentially damaging impact of that exploitation on the family and society as a whole, from using the latest research in child development to sell directly to young children to transforming youngsters into consumers at an alarmingly early age. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

SUSAN GREGORY THOMAS is an investigative journalist and broadcaster.
Formerly a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and co-host of public television’s Digital Duo, she has also written for Time, the Washington Post, Glamour, and elsewhere. She has two children, five and three years old.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From Buy, Buy Baby What might be called the baby genius
phenomenon--the widely held notion that infants and toddlers can be made
smarter via exposure to the right products and TV programs--has spread
throughout the toy industry. Today, to be competitive in the baby and
toddler business, a toymaker must make toys that encourage "learning," or
at least claim that they do. The fastest-growing segment of the $3.2
billion infant and preschool toy business is represented by "educational"
products, those that are advertised to stimulate babies' and toddlers'
cognitive abilities. Indeed, the demand for such playthings has completely
transformed the toy industry. It has helped catapult dot-com era start-ups
such as LeapFrog into the major leagues. It has also drastically shifted
the business strategies of long-time players such as Mattel's Fisher-Price
and Hasbro's PlaySkool, as they try to compete in a market driven by
so-called educational value as defined by wholesale buyers who employ no
educational guidelines in their decisions, but who are governed only by how
they believe customers will respond to packaging claims. It is now standard
practice for anyone marketing to very young children and their families to
make certain that his product--and brand--wears what is called an
educational halo. As one kids' marketing executive affirmed, if your
company can establish a halo, "you can pretty much get away with anything.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0618463518
• ISBN 13: 9780618463510
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 276