The left-leaning pressure group, Compass, has launched a campaign against what they refer to as the ‘commercialisation of childhood’.
The campaign, which exposes ‘the tactics marketers employ to directly target children’, argues that ‘an army of marketing experts and branding gurus [are] spending billions every year to directly target children to sell products and groom them for a lifetime of consumerism’. Although it received comparatively little coverage [most likely due to its coincidence with big news stories], the campaign is backed by a number of high-profile supporters from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the National Association of Head Teachers to the National Family and Parenting Institute amongst others. So the question is, how justified are Compass in instigating a moral panic? Probably, partially. Without a doubt, children have become increasingly bombarded through every kind of media by advertisements and as a consequence it is increasingly difficult to shelter one’s children from consumption desires. Agreed, equally, that it is the advertisers and businesses who are the bad guys in the equation. Yet, what Compass fails to factor into the equation are parents. Whilst they have intensified significantly, it is misguided to portray consumerism and pushy businesses as new phenomena. The gap in the market, therefore, and what Compass have failed to factor in, is what might be a little harshly described as a form of diminished parental discipline: the parent as buffer between sellers and children. Another facet of mass-market arrangements is the perpetually busy parent, laxer as a result, in its resistance to children’s consumerist demands – as well as the poorer parent, often particularly susceptible to the achievable temptations of instant material gratification for their children. In other words, Compass is overly crude in its analysis of the problem by focusing solely on a relationship between children and commercial money-makers.