Free Shipping!? There's no such thing.

"Free Shipping and Handling, 10% Cash Back, and more!"  

Any chance they're doing you a favor? Of course not.  It sounds good, but it's a lie advertisers use to make their deal look more attractive.  The cost of shipping is added to the total cost, and that's what you pay.  Nobody is going to step up and pay part of it for you.

We need to understand, marketing is about sales, and the industry will stretch to the very limits of the law in how they present their product line.  

The movie, Consuming Kids, throws desperately needed light

on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing

machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from

junk food and violent games to bogus educational products

and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care

professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the

film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the

wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used

advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience

to transform American children into one of the most powerful

and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming

Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of

childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's

marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.

Written by The Media Education Foundation.

From an ethical perspective, every billboard, every product

advertisement, every infomercial, every celebrity

endorsement is a manipulative attempt to

persuade without regard to your benefit.

Explain that to your kids.

More importantly, our children need to be told how to differentiate truth from persuasion and coercion.  If we don't explain it to them, they'll believe it.

Tell your kids about advertising, how it is not about information but about convincing you to buy things.  Talk about ads as they show up, "why would they use a cute dog in that ad about a car?"  

There are no neutral ads.  All of them are attempting to persuade or to extract money.  The multi-billion dollar advertising industry thrives on our collective gullibility.
  
Before their teen years, children generally do not have the clarity on their own to differentiate between information and persuasion.  Tell them.  Make it fun, a contest even.  

Celebrity endorsements are ... advertising.  Reverse mortgages aren't better because some celebrity (i.e., rich mouthpiece) tells you they are.

Fun music with dogs ... (Gimme, gimme, I'm worth it) is advertising.  Cute, but they're after your money and nothing else.


You might find Commercialized Children useful along with Commercialized Children - Continued.
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