Children as Consumers
used tend to be processed implicitly and without conscious awareness (Nairn and Fine, 2008)
33.
In March this year, responding to the concerns of UK consumers, industry and policy makers, the ASA's online remit was extended significantly to cover marketing communications on companies’ own websites and in other third party space under their control, such as social networking sites. The CAP Code will be applied in full to this new space.
34.
It is also important that the line between market research (asking children anonymously what they think of a product) and marketing (encouraging them to buy a product) is drawn very firmly in the sand, and the current work of the Market Research Society to clarify this important distinction is to be welcomed (Market Research Society, 2010).
Peer-to-peer marketing and brand ambassadors
35.
Another area of concern for parents is peer-to-peer and brand ambassador marketing, through which young people can receive a payment or payment in kind for promoting a particular product or brand to their friends.
36.
Peer-to-peer marketing might be done online or face to face, and it draws on the long-recognised power of word of mouth to get a marketing message across. Word-of-mouth marketing amplifies and monetises the natural and spontaneous urge we have to tell our friends about the products and services we like.The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) describes it this way:
"Word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing in existence as it combines the newest strategies, tactics, and channels with the most basic human behaviour: people like to talk!"
Word of Mouth Marketing Association
37.
Information about the size of the word-of-mouth industry in the UK is, however, hard to come by: available interim data from a current survey of industry activity indicates that some UK companies have used children under the age of 16 but not the extent of the practice (Advertising Association, 201 1).And parents’ attitudes towards it are mixed. The omnibus survey for this Review showed that more than a quarter of parents (27 per cent) thought peer-to-peer marketing should not be used to promote products to children, while research for the Advertising Association found that while some parents have concerns about the technique, others see some benefits, such as a source of pocket money (Advertising Association, 2011). However, alongside family organisations and consumer groups, many parents in our qualitative research expressed strong concerns about the ethics of paying children, or paying them in kind, to promote products personally to other children.
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