The Children’s Advertising Review Unit, an advertising watchdog that keeps tabs on marketing that targets kids, has chided shoemaker Skechers for an ad that made its shoes seem too cool.
In the ad, an animated girl named “HyDee” rules her school’s locker hallway because she’s got new Skechers Hy-Tops sneakers. CARU said that it delivered the unrealistic message that girls might become popular in school if they owned a pair. The ruling will doubtless vex marketers who target kids, as making them believe they can acquire “cool” through purchases is the basis of, well, pretty much all kids advertising.
Advertising directed at children has been a highly debated topic for some time. Do you think this ad crossed the line as far as deceiving children in the hopes that they will want their product? Should children be protected from such deceptive advertising?
For more info:http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/10004788/watchdog-cites-skechers-ad-as-too-cool-for-school/?tag=shell;content
- also contains video of the ad
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That's interesting. I would be more concerned if it was a real person/actor that they were saying is the coolest and you should get what Hydee (whatever her name was) has. With it being a cartoon, hopefully the impact will be less.
But I can see CARU's point about the ad - anything that's explicitly saying you need 'these' to be cool raises warning flags to me too, as a parent. Kids are very easily influenced and need stricter guidelines of what it broadcasted to them.
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