Analysis of Consumer Practices Surrounding Purchase of Children’s Items

Toys have long roots in local folk cultures and crafts, and regional and national traditions of toy and doll making have long reinforced ethnic and local identities in children. But the construction of modern childhood over the past century especially has paralleled the decline of these craft traditions and the emergence of a global childrens commercial culture.

This paper tries to look at the dynamics of children plaything industry especially in the context of globalization and its inter-linkages with media and other industries such as fashion, food and textiles. It dwells upon the factors which work as catalysts for this matrix to work around the globe in a homogenized manner.

Children consumer culture

Kids are the most unsophisticated of all the customers, they have the least, therefore they want the most.(McNeal, 1992, cited in Linn,2004). They are considered to be most emotionally vulnerable (Schor,2004,p.65) consumer population. The nature and experience of the childhood, as one of ongoing and unfolding identity formation, through a continuous taking in and desire to take in , suggest that we might view the basic identity of children as that of a consumer. In that way, consumption is interwoven with the formation of identity. The question arises, whose voice do they respond to in the construction of their consumer identity. Steven K. Khan in his article, Harnessing the complexity of children consumer culture writes , Children consumer culture is more than what children buy or what is bought on behalf of them .It is what they take in. It is what they come to desire. It is the identity that is constructed for and by them. This sort of brand entanglement has become inevitable for both the parents and children.According to Hall (1992, cited in Giroux,2000),Everybody now inhibits the popular, whether they like it or not

Marketing to children seeks to create cradle to grave (Linn ,2004) brand loyalty. Thats what makes Ronald McDonald to become one of the most recognizable fictional characters, second only to Santa Claus

According to one estimate, (Langer 2004), childrens global contribution to corporate profit through the purchase of food, drink, licensed clothing , sneakers ,sports equipments, computer, movies and theme park attendance is currently estimated at more than $450 billion.

The toy Industry across the world is highly fragmented. The present size of the toy market can be estimated to be about Rs.4.5billion. The biggest problem in estimating the size of the industries is the presence of large number of very small players. Besides there is no excise imposed so even the figure of production are not available. Four very large players have global operations namely Mattel, Lego, Hasbro, and Bandai. Mattel Toys are the largest toy manufacturer in the world. Bandai of Japan & Mattel have a strategy alliance worldwide for marketing each other's product. Mattel has been in India since 1985. The company sells toys under the brand name of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Star Beans etc. The Mattel Company is a $6 Billion company out of which their market share in India is around 20%. Lego controls up to 20% of the domestic market; another player is Leo Toys, which is largely credited with pioneering the organized toy market in India. Funskool Toys is the third largest toy producer. All three big players have linkages with Indian multinationals, with a collective market share of roughly about 16% of entire toy sector. Apart from these, three there are many other players like Chirantan Enterprise, Plastech International Pvt.Ltd., Aries Inc. and many others who run the toy market in India

Media as a catalyst

Children begin to learn consumer culture from the moment that they are wrapped in their blanket covered with licensed cartoon characters. it is a culture that they continue to consume as they traverse the pedagogical spaces of home, school, playground, and the mall into adult life (Steven K. Khan, Harnessing the complexity of children consumer culture). As cultural identities merge, traditions fade, and hostility increases, corporations, propelled by desire, search for untapped markets.

Media consolidation which sees four corporations, Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner and Fox, controlling most of what children consume as most of what children consume as popular culture is perceived as limiting the potential diversity of views to which children are exposed. These oligopolies exist not only in media but have in food, fashion, and toy culture industries that market to children.

Childrens consumption is intimately linked to their identity formation (Giroux, 2000, Martens et al., 2004). Cook suggests that some marketing strategies in childrens popular culture, encourage a form of training, a way of being, that is incompatible with notions of sacred, innocent, children but is highly compatible with aggressive, competitive, capitalism.

As Barber puts it, It is time to realize that the true tutors of our children are not school teachers or university professors but filmmakers, advertising executives and pop-culture purveyors¦ MTV trumps MIT. (Barber, 1996,p.12, cited in Reynolds 2004, p.25).

Commenting on televisions influence on Indian consumption behaviour, Unnikrishanan and Bajpai (1996) wrote, Consumerism is the new religion of the day and its most devout followers are children. This is not to say that the adult world is above the dictates of this new ethos. The difference is that the vision of the good life being drilled into viewers minds by the TV advertising is, in some ways, better internalized by children rather than the older generation.

He Man was a significant milestone in the evolution of childrens television because of the innovative type of cost-sharing co-operation it represented, between toy and manufacturer, the advertising industry and the emerging cable networks. It defined more clearly the dominant trend towards linking childrens entertainment to market forces and commercializing the notion of childrens developmental needs.

The major changes taking place in the entertainment sector in the US in the 1980s spawned another innovation that had huge impact on the globalization of world television in coming years: the emergence of dedicated childrens channels such as Disney channel, Nickelodeon and Time Warners Cartoon Network. The Disney channel is not a huge source of revenue for the corporation but its importance for corporate branding is huge, with characters being developed as media stars first, then as age-specific toy sales(through its partnership with Mattel) and icons licensed for use on everything from babies nappies to candy bars ,restaurant chains, theme parks and hotel resorts

In a globalized world, researchers theorize that the opening of regional and local markets to international business has increased consumerism and created an appetite for American products in many developing countries. Crucial to this process is the spread of television and the general spread of western mass media programming.

Schiller (1991) states that ,the goal of Western media is the creation of good consumers. Exposure to Western media including advertising has increased consumerism and created the desire to possess advertised goods.

The phenomenon of dark-haired girls in East Asia selecting blond-haired Barbie dolls might suggest the remarkable marketing power wielded by Mattel. It can even be called a reflection of U.S. cultural imperialism, with girls in Asia or Africa concluding that European blond hair is more attractive or even superior to their own dark hair..

Recently on Barbies 50th birth anniversary, Mattel's Lauren Dougherty, said "Barbie is a reflection of fashion, pop culture, and aspiration, and that's really how we celebrated her for her 50th birthday".

Critical analysis of globalization have often denounced the spread of a world-wide child culture founded on a standardised array of practices and values promoted by large multinational companies. In this interpretation, young people everywhere have been transformed into world-consumers induced to demand the same goods, play with the same toys, and feed their imaginations with the same themes and symbols.

To quote No Logo by the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein: The branded multinationals may talk diversity, but the visible result of their actions is an army of teen clones marching in uniform, as the marketers say into the global mall. Despite the embrace of poly-ethnic imagery, market-driven globalisation doesnt want diversity; quite the opposite. Its enemies are national habits, local brands and distinctive regional tastes. It could be said that advertisements for It could be said that advertisements for international brands and products targeted at children and adolescents are the most eloquent expression of commercial universalism. In the age of globalisation, it is alleged, not only does advertising flatten childrens culture into the worship of commodities and extravagance but it is one of the principal causes of the erosion of national and local traditions.

Commercials

The boundary between reality and fiction is therefore very fine. Images of different kinds (film, animation or synthesis) alternated or merged in the same shot, so that flesh-and-blood children, toys and cartoon characters all appear on the screen, moving in a domain where the real and imaginary worlds intermingled. In the commercials for My Pretty Barbie, for example, animated characters, dolls and small girls interacted in a setting where real snow in the foreground combined with painted fir trees, mountains and hills in the background. Likewise, Hot Wheels model cars seemed at times to be racing on the toy Turbo Jet City track and then in the virtual space of a video game. In other cases, the realism of the representation was altered by the use of special effects to emphasize certain of the toys properties.

The fusion of film, animated sequences and digital images, as well as the use of visual devices and sound effects, helped transform the toy into a key which provided entry into a dream-world. Toy advertising aims to reproduce the mechanisms of childrens typical play.The commercials depicted toys as instruments able to activate the imagination, the toys could give access to extraordinary (imaginary) experiences. The setting in which the game was played (often a childs bedroom) was anonymous, and the childs presence was marginal. The child playing with the toy was often relegated to second place, shrunk by a wide-angle shot which instead magnified the size of the toy. Some commercials showed only the hands and fingers of a child manipulating the product; and in some cases the child-player disappeared altogether, with the toy seemingly moving on its own. The toys often came to life in the commercials as the protagonists of stories. As Stephen Kline notes, advertising strategies increasingly rely on characterisation and personification (Kline 1993). In other words, it is not simply plastic dolls or teddy bears that appear on the screen, but individuals with names, personalities and social roles. Advertising attributes meaning to toys by associating them with a set of rules and rituals, every toy is related to a desired array of experiences and emotions. The commercial enacts a manner of playing and having fun, thus seeking to seduce children into believing that the toy will give them access to a special world and to a specific experience.

Marketing Strategies

The combination of playful advertisements featuring Ronald and his friends, colourful playgrounds at every restaurant, and featured toys in Happy Meals has

established a restaurant sought out by millions of children. A gift for young customers, given out with every meal, in the form of doll, cars or masks, further turns out to be promotional exercise for an upcoming Hollywood movie targeted on kids.( Eg. immensely popular Harry Potter dolls or Kung fu Panda masks ).

The newest entry in the league is Pokemon (or Pocket Monsters, a popular Japanese cartoon series ). A picture of Pikachu (a character from Pokemon) has been featured on the ANA Boeing 747-400 (JA8962), landing at London Airport In 2000, Pikachu was placed eighth in an Animax poll of favorite animal characters, with kids from across the globe participating in the poll.

Although the advertising industry appears to be dominated by the principles of globalization expansion, financial concentration, economies of scale, and standardization the endeavour to accomplish a single and universal message has failed. Since the 1980s, international marketing practices have shifted towards strategies which exclude the extreme options of total standardization. Although it promotes standardized products, international advertising aimed at children and adolescents appears to result from a trade-off between economic pressures towards standardization and the specific socio-cultural features of each national market, which instead impose adaptation and diversification. If we take the case of India, many of the toys which we see in the domestic market, are routed through Dubai, Malaysia and China. However, these imported goods are slightly modified to match Indian interest so as to have a slightly Indian taste monopoly. .Similarly, Arab girls in the Middle East are being gifted Barbies newest competition Hijab-clad Fulla dolls for the Islamic Eid al-Adha holidays which is the hottest selling doll to hit the Mid east markets.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that world monopolies have constantly tried to dominate the global market sphere with aggressive marketing strategies and tend to homogenize the tastes and preferences of global consumers and Toy industry is no exception. But to achieve the same aim they have adopted certain diverse mechanisms too. Now how diverse is that diversification, that is a debatable problem

The main aim today is to strike a balance between the coherence of the international image of a product or brand and its declension according to specific national settings.