MUMBAI: Its kid’s time at FICCI Frames 2005. 'Catch them young' has always been the mantra of brand pundits who are experimenting anything and everything that will market more effectively to kids. And why not, with over one third of the population representing kids there is a huge demand and supply mismatch, which the marketers would like to address. Hungama TV, Animax, Pogo, Nick, and now Disney coming up the war for kid’s space is just warming up.
The session will explore the various issues like what type of programming would appeal to kids, how should advertisers create messages that they can effectively market to the kids, how to associate brands with kids and an understanding of children psychology as far as advertising as a medium is concerned?
To discuss these issues will the some of the top honchos of kid’s space like Turner Entertainment Networks Asia's Ian Diamond, Branded TV Walt Disney Asia Nicky Parkinson, Lowe's Sanjai Srivastava and Millard Brown Services' Prasun Basu.
What makes kids suddenly so attractive as a market?
Children in India constitute 18.7 per cent of the world kids population and one-third of our country’s population is under the age of 15 years. While the UK has over 15 kids channels for less than a tenth of the Indian audience, India has only three foreign kids channels. Also kids are better consumers of advertising. Also their minds are not as cluttered as adult minds and so they can assimilate the message faster. That receptiveness translates into pester power.
In India, the ad spend per year on products meant for kids but purchased by parents, like health drinks, is 12 to 15 per cent of the total Rs 38,000 million.
So, innovative marketing strategies are increasingly targeting kids, directly or indirectly. A growing slew of ads feature kids - think of the Maruti ad with the little Sikh boy, the Hutch ad with the boy and the dog, the LG TV ad with the bespectacled boy, and several Pepsodent ads.
Why reaching kids is different?
Marketing to kids is different as they have certain characteristics, which marketers must keep in mind before creating their campaigns. These are:
Kids love bright color, characters and songs.
Children are secondary viewers and are initiated into TV viewing along with their parents.
Today kids have poor and selective socialisation.
They believe in Instant Gratification.
Parents give them professional attention rather than personal attention.
They have stronger peer bonding vis-?-vis sibling bonding.
Kids want a lot of power and control over things around them.
Kids connect with different role models in different part of their lives.
The Kido-logy session is not one to be missed at FICCI Frames 2005.
