Children in ads: An emotional hook to sell more

Research shows kids draw attention to the simple things in a charismatic way and, in turn, appeal to you as a viewer to purchase the brand or product that they are selling by building that emotional connect.

Advertising is so much more than just selling a product. It encompasses brand awareness, creative energy and storytelling. It can be hard to develop a concept that touches all of these marks while remaining entertaining, which is why when a strategy works for one brand, others begin to mimic it. A popular concept of ads of the current times is to feature child models in their videos.

Why kids Research shows kids draw attention to the simple things in a charismatic way and, in turn, appeal to you as a viewer to purchase the brand or product that they are selling to you by building that emotional connect. Advertisers feature kids in their commercials because they are innocent, funny and cute. There are many ways in which advertisers these days, feature kids in their commercial videos which eventually translate into successful campaigns.

For instance, one of the very first advertisements include the advert of the “utterly-butterly delicious” Amul butter, endorsed by a cute girl with polka dot dress and high ponytail, won the hearts of millions of mothers around the globe and made them to buy this product making the brand the world’s largest producer of milk and milk products. Similarly, the ad for the brand Surf Excel with the tagline “Kyunki daag acche hain!” featured a cute brother-sister duo wherein the sister fell into the mud while singing poem when they were coming back from school. The brother saw her crying and jumped into the mud and started hitting and punching it to make it say sorry to get his sister to smile. The whole idea behind it was that if such incidents can bring a smile on someone’s face then even spots are good. Since then, Surf Excel has been coming up with different versions of this ad, making people and buyers all over India love the brand and use it widely.

Although, these ads look very cute and impressive, one should understand that these ads are designed in such a way that customers don’t get a chance to think before using the products shown in these ads. Also, as child models are featured in ads like Bournvita, Horlicks, etc., it gives an impression that if women give children such drinks their children will become taller, stronger and sharper like the ones in those ads. Also, the cute little amusing child models are intentionally used as a marketing strategy to coax mothers to purchase their products.

Another marketing strategy used by advertisers these days is portraying children as adults and therefore, targeting the adult audience through them. For example, Flipkart started its advertising campaign “kids as adults” wherein child models are portraying a husband wife duo who is sitting in their living room watching TV. The husband picks up the wrong remote and says, “This DVD player is not working. It has been brought from Flipkart.” To this, the wife takes the remote and gives him the remote of the DVD player and says, “Faulty players can be replaced easily. How I wish this guarantee was there on husbands as well!” stating that Flipkart offers 30-day replacement guarantee. The ad ends with a tagline “Shopping ka naya address, Flipkart.com”. This campaign has given Flipkart huge business in a short span of time.

However, the flipside of this kind of advertising is that when little children see such ads, they want to become like the children in the ads or they think that having that particular product in hand is a cool thing which they can flaunt among their friends. This often results in them throwing tantrums to their parents to buy those products. This is called pestering or pester power which marketers use to make their goods reach to the doors of every house.

So basically advertisers are using kids to get into a consumer’s house to occupy a safe and sound position in the monthly shopping list. However, consumers should not get misled by this advertising strategy and should wisely choose the products on the basis of their benefits and usability and not merely on the basis of flashy adverts with cute child models in it.

The writer is executive director, Shemrock Preschools, and founder director, Shemford Futuristic Schools.