The Merchant Of Cool Analysis

Naomi Klein in her book No Logo outlines her thoughts as to how marketing and advertising by a company has made a dramatic shift from showcasing a product, to the branding of the company name. Companies have now shifted their focus to creating an association between the company and an idea. The company then uses this idea to sell their products.

A wise man once said, “Our own relentless search for novelty and social status locks us into an iron cage of consumerism.” This idea, that affluence has deceived us, can be seen particularly in today’s generations. The total U.S teen spending in the year 2014 was 258.7 billion dollars ("Teenage Consumer Spending Statistics"). This statistic is especially staggering because as of 2009, only about ⅓ of teens work, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics. Today’s consumer driven society has exposed our youth to numerous corporations that are driven to capture the attention of teenagers. The vulnerability

Imagine money draining out of your bank account and into advertisers’ wallets. This is a reality, and marketers know how to make intelligent moves, and spend large quantities of money, to persuade you into thinking that you ‘need’ a product. $15 billion, to be precise, spent on advertising in just one age group (Linn). Did you know that this age division of eight to twenty-four year olds increases the amount of total money spent on advertising? This is because tweens are the ‘Big Spenders.” Therefore, advertisers specifically target younger audiences in order to continually increase their profits.

Since the beginning of corporations, marketers have been targeting teenagers since teens have the money to blow and the urge to want the next hot new item. Like Mark Crispin Miller said in the documentary The Merchants of Cool,” What this system does is it closely studies the young keeps them under constant surveillance to figure out what will push their buttons.” Resulting in marketers striving to advertise towards teens interests because they want to make sure their products are appealing and a must have item. In a

When trying to understand why marketers have chosen to increasingly focus their attention on teenagers, three key points point to the answer. First, advertisers have increasing access to the market demographic. Secondly, the demographic shows continuing growth. And third, the demographic demonstrates a steady growth in their influence over spending. As Keith Niedermeier, Wharton visiting professor of marketing and panel moderator at the “What Teens Want” conference stated, "Teens are an enormously important segment because they are disproportionately powerful in terms of being trend setters and early adopters” (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)

Kids are seeing too many fast food commercials a day. Have you had a teen in your life ever say to you, “Please mom, let me eat at Rock &, Roll Diner!” or “ It’s the best,I heard from my friend Tyler.” If you have heard that from your thirteen plus year old child, then they are being targeted by advertisers around the world. Advertisers treat teenagers as a separate target audience.

Generation Z is the most diverse demographic group in the United States. It has been recorded there are over 20.9 million tweens with a purchasing power of $BLANK amount. The current tween is being targeted. Different clothing, technological, and food companies have tried different marketing tactics to reach out to this new generation of youngsters. However, some marketers have failed to connect with this group, because certain marketing strategies are outdated and separated from the tween’s view. The primary research is fixated on understanding the habits and interests of tweens.

Many factors such as demographics, psychographics and geographic area can determine how intensely teenage groups will adhere to brand images. Teenagers living in more affluent areas have greater exposure to popular images and to the resources needed in obtaining items associated with a particular image. Oppositely, Teenagers who attend schools in more rural areas may not be as influenced by popular images since such resources are not readily available in areas. Also, income levels shape how those teenagers perceive certain brand images. A teenager who grew up in a wealthier home with easier access to pop culture images (televisions, cable television, shopping malls, etc.) would be more likely to succumb to societal norms than teenagers who grew up in lower household incomes.

In No Logo, Naomi Klein was highly critical of globalized capitalism and the consolidation of giant corporations and highly standardized brands and chain stores like Wal-Mart, the Gap and Starbucks. All of these companies are not attempting to become that "one overarching brand under which we consume, make art, [and] even build our homes" (Klein 1999, 2009, p. 130). Even the retail outlets are completely uniform and clone-like, with one Kinko's, Blockbuster or McDonald's looking basically like any of the others. By 1998,

Like many companies, marketing to children has proven to be quite profitable; not only in the short-term, as previously explained, but also in long-term goals as children and teenagers become the consumers of tomorrow. By appealing to young consumers whose parents might not be willing to purchase the product for them, they are planting the seeds for future sales when the young targeted audience becomes able to make purchases on their own.

Children and teenagers form a good number of the world’s population. Their large numbers means they are a good market for any product that targets them. Their customer loyalty is also outstanding since they do this until they outgrow the product. Companies that sell to this age group usually have to do their marketing once in a while since most of the marketing is done by their clients, the children and teens. Children and teens make this possible by asking their parents to buy them products similar to those of their peers.

Television has been a mainstay in reaching this group (Kraak, 1998). However, this is also changing with young people spending more time online and spending countless hours gaming rather than watching television. Advertisers have discovered they must meet the young where they meet. It is not uncommon to see major companies advertise within the gameplay of a video game. From the Beetles to Justin Beiber, Young people have always been influenced by pop culture. This is a huge marketing advantage. Celebrities have become an essential piece in the marketing strategies of many companies, especially when marketing to the young people. For example it is commonplace for young people to convince their parents to spend nearly two hundred dollars on the latest LaBron James or Kobe Bryant endorsed sneakers.

Several studies have demonstrated the effect that marketing has on young, impressionable children and adolescents. The average child in the U.S sees about

Marketers spend huge amounts of dollars a year globally persuading individuals into consumer lifestyles that has had consequences of wastefulness and buying things we do not need (Beder, 1998). Advertisements exploit people’s securities, create false needs and offer dishonest solutions. The bottom line of advertisements is the creation of dissatisfaction to cause consumption. Youth are most prone to this kind of product manipulation (Tepperman & Curtis, 2013). Marketers are targeting young children since they easily influence their parents’ spending. Traditionally, marketing concentrated on children items

Goodman (1999), research found that the average young person views more than 3000 ads per day on television, on the Internet, on billboards, and in magazines, that was in 1999, as media and technology evolves so does advertising; imagine the figure it would be today. Advertising is a $250-billion-year industry within 900,000 brands to sell ("Children, Adolescents, and Advertising", 2006). Teenagers spend $155 billion a year, making them the most attractive costumers, hence why commercial advertisings are nearly always targeted at the youth age ("Branded: the buying and selling of teenagers", 2003). Aiming commercial advertising at youth, enables