It's All About Profit: Exploiting Kids for Cash
BreakPoint with Charles Colson
Commentary #040827 - 08/27/2004
It's All About Profit: Exploiting Kids for Cash
The story got only a brief mention in the NEW YORK TIMES -- a three-paragraph
article buried on an inside page. To me, it's a big story -- and a disturbing
one.
The article reported, "Magazines popular with teenagers like PEOPLE, ROLLING
STONE, and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED tend to have more advertisements for liquor and
beer than other magazines, and that suggests that the alcohol industry may be
indirectly appealing to under-age drinkers." A study published in the JOURNAL OF
THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION showed that "for every million more readers
ages 12 to 19, a magazine had 60 percent more advertisements for beer and
distilled liquor."
I don't think it's a question of "indirectly" appealing to underage drinkers at
all. I think the alcohol industry knows exactly what it's doing -- just like the
cigarette industry did with its now infamous "Joe Camel" image. Problem drinkers
don't usually start in middle age. It's when you get a kid hooked at age sixteen
that you've got him for life. And it's easier to get him hooked at an age when
his paramount concern is to be "cool," to fit in with everyone else. In their
relentless drive for more and more profits, both the alcohol industry and the
magazine industry have completely forgotten their responsibility to society and
to children.
Perhaps the saddest part of this story is that it's received so little
attention. In an interview with PBS's FRONTLINE a couple of years ago, Professor
Mark Crispin Miller observed, "In a thoroughly commercialized environment, there
is very little incentive to be careful of the sensibilities of particular
segments of the audience. Thirty years ago, a certain kind of commercial
approach to children would have been unthinkable . . . [But] we're all far more
jaded about advertising than we used to be . . . So [advertisers] tend to do
things that are more outrageous than anything they would have tried thirty years
ago."
We're so "thoroughly commercialized" -- so caught up in materialism -- that
we've forgotten that the most basic human instinct is to protect and guide our
children. Greed seems to control the conversation, and even parents don't weigh
in on behalf of their kids.
Well, you and I are not going to prevent magazines from printing beer and liquor
ads or from using sex to sell beer, liquor, and just about anything else. And,
since the ads are on billboards as well, we're not going to be able to prevent
our kids from seeing them.
We can, however, prepare our kids by helping them understand the worldview that
underlies most advertising. It's a materialistic worldview that's selling
hedonism. The company that makes the advertised product just wants our money and
is willing to promise us just about any pleasure in order to get it.
There was a time when advertisers yielded to the opinions of parents, but no
longer. Since kids have money, kids are the market, and the opinions of parents
are less important.
This makes it all the more urgent to talk with your kids about advertising and
the worldview behind it and to warn them where this kind of exploitation can
lead. The really "cool" answer is to see through this advertising blitz and just
say "no."
Originally published August 27, 2004.
