American Forum Discusses Marketing To Youth By Kate Oczypok Eagle Staff Writer
Over 200 students, faculty, and staff gathered in Mary Graydon Center Tuesday evening to discuss marketing towards the youth of America at one of four American Forums hosted by the School of Communication at AU.
The event, titled "Marketing Cool: The Buying of Young America," was moderated by SOC Professor Jane Hall, included panelists Radley Balko, Matt Britton, Dr. Velma LaPoint, Julia Sherman, and Jeff Wagner. Students were invited to ask questions halfway through the program, which will be broadcast on WAMU Thursday evening.
"The truth is that advertisers spend billions of dollars per year to reach young people," Hall said in her opening statement. "Many commercials target young men and women, particularly commercials for alcohol and soda products."
Hall began discussing the Super Bowl and the ads that are aired during the game. When asked to pick his favorite Super Bowl ad, Wagner spoke about how Sunday's Super Bowl was a "Janet Jackson backlash."
"It was basically a commercial malfunction," said Wagner, who has worked in sports marketing for over 30 years and now works at Comcast SportsNet. "I did like Budweiser's sky-diving ad...It was fun and it had a message."
Sherman mentioned that young people are not the primary viewers of the Super Bowl. "The fact is that 12 to 20 year olds represent about 12 to 20 percent of the population---that's probably the percentage that watched the Super Bowl this Sunday," said Sherman, the former field director for the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth.
LaPoint discussed the specifics of how marketers target youths. "Marketers are more likely to capitalize on the language and dress of young people," said LaPoint, who is an associate professor in the School of Education at Howard University in D.C. "The truth is, adolescence is a time of uneven development...People tend to dress a certain way and go after the same product."
When answering a student's question regarding product placement, Britton spoke about a "Friends" episode that revolved around a Pottery Barn product. The Pottery Barn table episode was probably the beginning of the product placement phenomenon, said Britton, the executive vice president of Sales and Marketing and Founding Partner of Mr. Youth, LLC.
Balko, who is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute, specializes in "nanny culture," or the idea that there should not be restrictions on ads. We trust 18-year-olds to vote, drive cars...Why can't we trust them to see ads for alcohol and understand that they are not legally able to consume alcohol yet, Balko asked. The American Forum was created in 1986. The forums are broadcast over public radio stations across the nation and C-SPAN.
