Dwarves: those little large

On one occasion, Carlos Blanco has commented on his blog and in public, as it took the decision to create Pequejuegos, a website dedicated to children born from observing the behavior of his son on the internet and see how websites rate Disney, despite his undoubted quality, were not what his son was looking for. So for years a site of great success and set a target last month which gave nearly 15,000,000 page views on data from Nielsen.

The case is an exception, half the companies, including ours, despite being an interesting niche content have not created mainly for children, an enormous strategic mistake. The merit of Carlos is to observe, interpret and infer from the attitude of his young son in front of a computer a chance to market.

No longer surprising to think that children have become increasingly active consumers. Assets in the sense that they intervene forcefully on the purchase decisions of the family. Some researchers say that due to the predominance of the family model "democratic" in which all decisions. They, small large, have great influence on the decisions that were formerly in the place of adults. I do not think that is due to a "democratization" of positions relatives. For me it is because parents are less present and replace this with no gifts to children and allowing greater market access. Experts speak of compensation that puts parents in the place of everything but the presence of suppliers.

For this reason, the publicity has focused not only as a target for the sale of products for them, but also as intermediaries in the purchasing decisions of their parents. Adults have to ask ourselves where we were or what we were doing when the big names in the line bellow strategies tell us what to buy through our children. Obviously we do not ask advice from our children to buy a laptop, but perhaps if we do the shopping for breakfast or movie off the emule, sorry, meant to rent the weekend.

Today, children can choose between the various proposals in addition to the usual advertising (cinema, television, radio, publications) because the Internet has arrived .... but also in other areas such as school. The United States has even school sponsored by companies with interests in children. Not something that happens in many other countries and may even still be ethically questionable.

Not only offered food and toys, today added mobile phones, ringtones and logos, Ipods, etc. are products that in some segments have a clear target children who are behaving more like a toy or websites where more information is on cartoons, games and merchandising. The only brands that drove the former movie and television screens (like Disney and other entertainment industries child), are positioned on the Internet today is very strong in this segment.

The new generations are digital natives, unlike us, and we can not conceive of life without the media, which already happens to many of us. They ignore the pre-Internet world is now part of their lives. Parents should make sure your children understand what content is commercial and what not.

The number of children who are connected to the Internet and its influence on prescribing and consumption patterns is not a number that we should disregard: 7 out of 10 Spanish children use the internet and 6 out of 10 are mobile. Internet is used as a tool in school, but also email, IM and social networks are part of the technological consumption habits of children. On the other hand, we must not forget that mobile phones for children, began as a "gift" to maintain contact remote data and this brings us back to the top: the absence of parents.

We are in a consumer society that is increasingly small, but experienced, restless, insistent, informed. New technologies are largely responsible for this new form of child ... but the parents too.

Tags: Carlos Blanco, consumption, infant, Internet, messenger, niiños, pequejuegos, prescription