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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | Marketing targeted at kids is virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, Juliet B. Schor, New York Times bestselling author of The Overworked American, examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope, and effectiveness have created "commercialized children." Ads and their messages about sex, drugs, and food affect not just what children want to buy, but who they think they are. In this groundbreaking and crucial book, Schor looks at the consequences of the commercialization of childhood and provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children. Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Juliet B. Schor | | Paperback: | 304 pages | | Publisher: | Scribner | | Publication Date: | October 04, 2005 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0684870568 | | Product Length: | 8.41 inches | | Product Width: | 5.53 inches | | Product Height: | 0.72 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.64 pounds | | Package Length: | 8.2 inches | | Package Width: | 5.4 inches | | Package Height: | 0.8 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 20 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 20 customer reviews )
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75 of 76 found the following review helpful:
 Scathing Analysis of Marketing Practices Nov 06, 2004
By Erika Mitchell
This book is an extended report on current marketing practices aimed at children and their results. The author begins by noting how marketing practices have changed over the last ten to fifteen years. In the 1970s and 1980s, when many of today's new parents were growing up, laws and industry practices provided some level of protection and privacy for children from the focus of marketing campaigns. Now, however, the gloves are off, and marketing firms shamelessly push everything from junk food to beer, cigarettes, cosmetics, and cars to `tweens, children between the ages of 6 and 12. Schor worked closely with marketing professionals while gathering information for this book so that she could obtain insider views. At the end of the book, Schor notes that these marketers generally feel horrible about what they do and the lengths they go to, but feel they have to continue in order to feed their own families.
The kinds of marketing practices that Schor describes in this book are shocking and outrageous. Many parents have heard of Channel One, an organization that puts TVs in schools for free, but parents may not be aware that in exchange for use of the equipment, administrators agree to force students to watch Channel One program complete with commercials while sitting in their seats and with the volume turned on. But force-feeding commercials to a captive audience of school kids is nothing compared to other current practices, such as having children conduct and even surreptitiously videotape focus-group data from friends at slumber parties that marketers pay them to organize. And then there are the "viral-marketing" campaigns, where kid leaders are sought out because other kids think they're cool, and then paid to convince other kids to buy merchandise, or when college kids are paid to sit in bars and pretend to be ordinary patrons while extolling the virtues of a company's alcoholic beverages.
Schor notes that there are now many ways in which marketing messages are delivered to kids. Kids are exposed to ads through viral-marketing, magazines, and radio. But television advertising seem to be especially hard for youngsters to understand and withstand. Marketers know that if they tell young kids that a product is fun or cool, the kids will pester their parents to get it, and they more the kids see the ads, the more persistent they will be with the pestering. Internet advertising is also a great problem for children, since young children have great difficulty recognizing which parts of the screen are filled with advertising and which parts with content. Marketers even embed Internet games with logos and ads, so that the ads are inseparable from the content.
One result of all this exposure to advertising is that kids these days are more heavily into consumerism than ever before. Schor cites a 1997 time use survey in which it was found that American children now spend, on average, two and a half hours each week shopping, which is twice as much time as they spend reading or going to church, and five times as much as they spend playing outdoors. They are extremely brand conscious with their clothing choices, even well before their teenage years. Schor attempted to find how down-shifting families dealt with all these commercial influences on their children, but found that it was extremely difficult to locate down-shifters with children- -apparently, having children in the house who are so exposed to marketing campaigns makes it difficult to avoid over-consumption.
To see how modern hyper-consumerism is affecting children, Schor conducted a research survey among kids in downtown and suburban Boston. She found that the marketing pitches are causing serious harm to children's well being. Advertisements for junk food, sweets, and soft drinks are feeding the obesity epidemic among our children, and the kids who watch the most TV are the ones getting the fattest. Heavy TV watchers also tend to have the greatest number of behavior problems, they have problems getting along with their parents, and they cannot seem to find satisfaction with life, no matter how much they buy. In contrast, in another study conducted by Thomas Robinson in San Jose, California, it was found that children whose TV watching was reduced also reduced their requests for products advertised on TV.
This book is clearly written and very well researched. Sources are cited through endnotes found at the back of the book (but not numbered explicitly in the main text). There is also an extensive bibliography and index. At times, the text can be rather heavy and overbearing, as Schor buries the reader in fact after depressing fact, so it's not exactly a fun book to read. Nevertheless, the material is extremely important for all of us, parents or not.
39 of 43 found the following review helpful:
I'm convinced. Dec 13, 2004
By Christopher Carstens
I'm a practicing child psychologist, and I have followed the media and their impact on children for a number of years. I found Dr. Schor's arguement accurate and convincing. I think the book is a must read for parents seriously concerned about the way big advertising is socializing their kids.
By the way, I recommended the book to my book club -- all men, mostly with children. Me, a child psychiatrist, a lawyer and a bunch of engineer types. Not a group for "chick books." We thought it was one of the best we've read in a couple of years.
18 of 19 found the following review helpful:
Highly Captivating; A Must-Read for Parents! Nov 10, 2004
By Kirsten Crase
It is no secret that children today wield more consumer power than ever, and that marketers have discovered them as one of the most profitable niches. But what is the real impact of all of this consumer attention on children?
In her latest book, renowned economist, consumer/family studies expert, and founding New American Dream Board Member Juliet B. Schor argues that this impact is detrimental, and something we ought to be paying much more attention to.
Says Schor, "We have become a nation that places a lower priority on teaching its children how to thrive socially, intellectually, even spiritually, than it does on training them to consume."
Indeed, her documentation of commercialization within schools is truly disturbing. And the results of a survey which Schor administered to a sampling of "tween"-aged children strongly indicate that heavy involvement in consumer culture jeopardizes children's well-being.
Ultimately, Schor argues that we need to take steps to decommercialize childhood, and she lays out several intriguing ideas for how to do so. Highly captivating and packed with vivid examples, this book should be required reading not only for parents but for anyone who cares about the future of our society.
13 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 Solid argument against the commercially constructed childhood Apr 23, 2006
By S.
"strap"
There's not doubt that corporations, advertisers and marketers do not have your child's best interest at heart. Schor provides a comprehensive account of the what, why and how marketers are targeting your children.
Reading "Born to Buy" will make you want to throw out the TV, disconnect from the Internet, run to the country and home-school your children. Simply put, there's no way to avoid marketing techniques, and your child will succumb to the corporate-commercially constructed childhood. With all the doom and gloom in this book, Schor offers little hope of avoidance...in the end, she does provide a few solutions.
All in all, "Born to Buy" was very informative and an easy, entertaining read. However, some of Schor's original research and statistics caused me to get bogged down. I wasn't looking for scholarly research and did not need to see these statistics. Additionally, Schor seemed to use this book as a chance to take shots at the Bush administration. Although I'm not a fan of this administration and some of the criticism is valid, I do not think Bush started this problem...he's just done nothing to fix it.
All in all, this is well worth the read, especially if you have small children...just skip over the stats near the end, and forgive Schor's attempts at making this political.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
We need more studies like this! Mar 09, 2010
By Cleat C. Roberts
I was a math teacher for 7 years and I ultimately quit the job never to return. I worked hard and was proud of what I accomplished but increasingly found myself powerless to really affect the lives of my students in a meaningful and helpful way. I became aware of a billion dollar goliath staring down into my face squashing my feeble attempts to educate these youths. I worked 50 to 60 hours a week, 12 hour days sometimes, and even put a minimum annual amount of $500 of my own money into buying necessary instructional materials. Yet, it wasn't enough. I was confused. I didn't understand why so many students had the money to buy expensive brand name jeans that were well over 100 dollars yet could not afford to bring a 10 cent pencil to class. Students had cell phones, designer clothes, and all sorts of goodies and yet were disrespectful to me, challenged my authority, or simply just ignored me. Some students even wondered why they were not paid to go to school.
Obviously, their priorities were not education. And where do these attitudes come from? Why is it that schools struggle to get the money they need having bake sales (or selling their souls to corporations) for school supplies and such? What is it? Politicians love to go on about "No Child Left Behind" and yet rob the poor with lotteries to offset state funds for education just so they can build more prisons, roads, or whatever it takes for them to get re-elected.
The answer is clear. The answer is in this book. Juliet B. Schor does an outstanding job shining the light of truth upon the real evil-doers in the world. And I state whole heartedly that any person who is willing to exploit a child for their own personal gain is indeed an evil-doer. Make no mistake! There is a billion dollar industry that is profiting from failing schools and the degradation of morals. This industry cares not if the child's priorities are Hum-Vee's and Rolex watches. They have no interest if this kid goes to school without a pencil. All they care about is sucking their coveted dollar from whatever kid they can!
I am sick and tired of it. I resent how Madison Avenue treats people. And I am disgusted with their exploitation of our young people. Whoever is engaged in this should be ashamed of themselves (if they even feel shame). I cannot imagine such people as even being human.
This is why I am so thankful for this book. And, this is why this book is so important. We need more books like this! We need more people seeing this sickness and we need more people willing to challenge Madison Avenue's stranglehold over the people.
I tip my hat to Juliet Schor and thank her for this fine work.
If you are interested in learning more about this than this is an outstanding source. I've also read her other books and I highly recommend them as well.
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