Through Children's Minds

In recent decades, few markets have increased so dramatically as that of children and few are as important. Successful products can foster a lifetime of brand loyalty while a failed product or marketing campaign can cause a lifetime of rejection. Yet some companies, not realizing the unique psychology of children, create products or market them to children based on faulty ideas, later wondering why they were unsuccessful despite great effort and financial investment. The minds of children differ profoundly from those of adults and to successfully market and create children's products requires knowledge of these differences. Though children's behavior can seem quirky and inexplicable, it possesses an inherent logic which can be understood by adults and is described in this book. Through Children's Minds provides sophisticated information about the children's marketplace, marketing and creating children's products, and what children like-and dislike-in television and other media. Dr. Stanley Goldstein is an author and psychologist who has appeared on national broadcasts including The Larry King Show and CourtTV. Contents: Author's Note...9 Foreword: Who Should Read This Book...11 Introduction: How the Marketing to Children Began...15 Chapter 1: What Children Are Really Like...21 Chapter 2: The Behavior of the Child As Customer...31 Chapter 3: The Psychology of the Child As Customer...35 Chapter 4: Why Children Buy...45 Chapter 5: How Child Customers Differ From Adult Customers...51 Chapter 6: Maturing From Child to Adult Customer...57 Chapter 7: The Child As Influencer of Family Purchases...59 Chapter 8: The Global Children's Market...67 Chapter 9: Developmental Changes in Play...73 Chapter 10: Child Psychology and Children's Products...81 Chapter 11: The Art of Developing Children's Products...89 Chapter 12: The Uniqueness of Marketing to Children...99 Chapter 13: What You Must Know to Create New Marketing Ideas...107 Chapter 14: Marketing to Children Which Will Likely Fail...119 Chapter 15: Advertising to the Youth Market...127 Chapter 16: How Children Relate to Television...137 Chapter 17: What Makes Children's Television Commercials Effective?...157 Chapter 18: Is Television Advertising Still Critical In the Digital Age?...175 Chapter 19: Promotional Activities With Children...181 Chapter 20: Marketing, Children's Orientating, And Conducting Market Research...189 Author's Note: My thought of writing Through Children's Minds originated in workshops on telecommunications and marketing which I prepared under the auspices of Behavioral Information Services. The telecommunications workshop explained eighty percent of the telecommunications section in the Encyclopedia of Engineering in just one day. My goal was comparable for the Children's Marketing Workshop. This book requires no prior knowledge of advertising, marketing, or child psychology. Its only requirement is the willingness to abandon the inaccurate explanations of children's behavior which each person, naturally and intuitively, has created, the "na ve psychology" to which Fritz Heider, a leading figure in the field of social psychology, devoted a lifetime of study. Discarding cherished conclusions is difficult for these are the bedrock of our personality. Yet children easily accomplish this task as they develop. Should less be demanded of adults?