They may be small, but as a combined group, children wield
impressive spending power. In the UK, kids are draining their parents’
wallets - Saatchi & Saatchi puts the pester power figure at over pounds
31bn annually.
In the US, the annual income of children under the age of 12 is dollars
27.5bn (pounds 17.5bn), according to a study by James McNeal, professor
of marketing at Texas University. Their power also stretches far beyond
their weekly pocket money to directly influence dollars 188bn (pounds
120bn) worth of adult expenditure.
Worldwide, that figure reaches dollars 1870bn (pounds 1191bn).
Industry experts say kids have more influence on spending than ever
before.
Simon Sholl, strategic planning manager at design agency Design Bridge,
says this is driven by a number of factors. The rise of the dual-income
family means parents have more disposable income. This goes hand in hand
with the guilt factor; long working hours mean parents see less of their
children and are more inclined to indulge them. In the liberal 90s,
children have more autonomy in the decision process; they have a say in
what their parents buy, from breakfast cereals to the family car.
This is a lucrative sector to target and marketers have recognised the
importance of drawing children to their products through visual
sign-posting by focusing strongly on design. But it is a battleground
for designers, since children are being bombarded with marketing
messages.
Media literacy
In the US, expenditure on advertising targeted at children is growing
year on year by between 15% and 20%, according to McNeal. Spin-off
products from films, computer games and TV shows such as The Simpsons
are all playing a part in attracting kids. As a result children are
increasingly brand-aware and fashion conscious.
The ’KGOY’ factor - kids getting older younger - has also been
identified, according to Greg Vallance, creative director at design
agency Dragon.
This is affecting the younger under-11s end of the market as much as the
older bracket: ’We are having to design edge and attitude into
everything,’ says Vallance.
Key design elements which appeal to younger children, who have not
developed the subtleties of older sectors, include bright primary
colours. Yellow attracts children from a young age while physical
sensations, including 3-D products, also appeal. Cartoons and characters
are also crucial in attracting and retaining kids’ interest, especially
those who cannot read.
Tony Watts, director at design agency Siebert Head, which has developed
designs for Chewits and Petits Filous, points to the Sugar Puffs Honey
Monster as the perfect example of a character becoming synonymous with
the product.
The children’s sector can suffer from a lack of differentiation with the
designs ’all shouting off the shelf’, says Sholl, who argues that
creating a character with staying power to mark out a product is ’the
holy grail’.
Dragon decided it needed to design personalities for products and push
colour when it was asked to overhaul the Early Learning Centre’s product
range. ’All the packaging was ELC generic; everything looked the same,’
says Vallance. Dragon split products into categories and branded the
categories with individual identities. For example, it developed Blossom
Farm, a farmyard-based theme with a range of characters for the toddler
sector.
The characters are now appearing on puzzles, as part of a
cross-marketing effort to reinforce the branding and compete with market
leaders.
Age differentiation
Designers point out that children in the older bracket are a different
target. They start to develop more sophisticated tastes, are more
cynical and aware that they are being marketed to, and peer pressure is
more pronounced.
Cool is crucial. Design Bridge’s solution for a new Nestle flavoured
milk drink demonstrates the split between designing for older and
younger children.
It pitched the same product to distinct age brackets by coming up with
two different designs. The design for Mini Mooze, aimed at four- to
ten-year-olds, incorporates a brightly-coloured cartoon cow performing
various activities from roller-skating to unicycling, while Maxi Mooze,
for 11- to 15-year-olds, has a more trendy and grown-up skateboarding
character in a different graphic style.
The further down the age range you go, the more segmentation is
needed.
There is a world of difference between a six- and a seven-year-old,
particularly in their eye level and visual interests. Adults, by
contrast, fit more broadly into distinct age ranges such as 15-20 or
20-25.
Adults can’t be forgotten even when targeting their children. Where
parents still hold the purse strings, a product is aimed as much at them
as at children. Designers need to combine fun for kids with a perceived
health or educational benefit that will appeal to adults.
Watts points to Kraft Cheese Strings, finger food with a fun factor that
appeals to children, but also has a nutritional value that attracts
parents.
Design and branding could become more important as legislative issues
come into play, says Jonathan Hall, marketing consultant at design
agency CLK. When Sweden takes over the EU presidency in 2001, it will
push to extend its ban on advertising to children across Europe. If the
legislation is passed it will be up to design to shift product.
Another change will come as internet technology becomes more pervasive
among net-literate kids. E-toy, a US online toy store, has already set
up shop. Sholl says: ’The internet will have an enormous bearing on
design and marketing to kids; designers will be faced with creating a
multi-dimensional pack which will have to function across a range of
media.’
TESCO TOY PLANET
Frances Kirk, director of The Creative Direction Partnership, the design
division of the Haygarth Group, says: ’Our brief was to create a
personality for the toy department within Tesco. They wanted to increase
awareness of new products. We had quite strict guidelines to follow; we
had to appeal to the younger market while reinforcing the Tesco brand
image.
We had to highlight the department to make sure it could be seen across
any size of store. It had to work with five or six elements or a whole
toy department, so it had to be quite modular. There were 11 different
product categories within the department from baby and toddler to
educational.
We presented three concepts, all of which were completely different and
had a strong fun theme to grab the kids’ attention. They were relevant,
but non-specific so they would have a long shelf life. Anything
fashion-led is going to date.
The first concept was a Toy Store, a store within a store, featuring a
smiley character with changing colours and expressions to be used across
the department. The second was Toy Barn, which was based on a farmyard
theme, and finally Toy Planet, which was chosen.
It created more theatre within the store with big cut-out hanging space
ships and complete space stations in the larger stores, but without
introducing Martians and characters since we had to be careful that we
were not fighting against any of the toy brands. We colour coded each of
the sections to make it easy to shop the store - all the colours are
really bright, almost fluorescent. The concept appeals to the older
children in touch with Star Wars and the bright colours appeal to the
younger ones. The Tesco branding reassures the parents.’
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