childs play - part ii

[ older post : childs play - part i ]

still working on my research project about how to sell stuff to kids. how to create a marketing strategy that benefits both the marketer and the child.

questions that come to mind when you try to solve this issue are :

what makes a child want to own / consume a product ?
can you build brand loyalty among children ?
how strong is loyalty ?
how does a child evaluate an offering ?
how do they think ? how do they reason, evaluate and estimate ?
how is their language different from that of adults ?
how does disney do it ?

children interact more, they do not just perceive a product or a retail environment, they actually play with it. it comes from their nature, they are questioning and learning because several of the cognitive structures that adults take for granted are missing in the childs mental make-up.

a child notices and observes more, life is less mundane for him than it is for an adult doing a chore. in a store, a child notices things like floor tiles, point-of-purchase banners, display shelves, danglers, and if these are within an arms reach, the child will try to touch it, to move it. his experience needs inputs from several senses, if he is young enough he'll want to put any such object in his mouth, to taste it, to chew on it. an adult may look at a banner and 'know' what the plastic sheet material might feel, but a child does not 'know', he hasn't made the connection, its a new sensation to him.

what does all this mean to a marketer. here you have a customer who is more receptive to your communication elements, an audience that may not have as much direct spending power as an adult but who will listen with rapt attention if you catch his fancy. the child is far more open to something new-to-the-world, because almost everything around him is new-to-his-world.

so when a marketer is trying to sell a new product, a revolutionary concept to adults he has to battle pre-concieved notions, a reluctance to try new things and a perception of risk in doing something new. with a child, he has someone who is willing and actually excited about anything new. even if it isn't a child-product. children can get excited about things as mundane as a vacuum cleaner, a mop, anything.

[ more later... ]