Microsoft, Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. have advertised to kids for years to promote their video game consoles. Recently, more button-down tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. also have turned their attention to so-called tweens, kids at ages 8 to 12.
By some estimates, tweens influence $60 billion in spending annually.
It's not clear how much tech companies spend to reach young kids, but Dell's former youthful pitchman "Steven" -- known for his enthusiastic, "Dude, you're getting a Dell" -- aimed squarely for younger audiences. Sony tried to appeal to 11- and 12-year-olds with a campaign for its iPod rival Walkman Bean on MTV. For its part, HP executives spent part of this year brainstorming how to make the company's staid printers and PCs more appealing to kids.
"We think about not only future customers but future employees," said Shirley Bunger, HP's director of brand innovation. "If we don't understand what they're doing now and if we don't' start developing products and services, by the time they're old enough to be employed or spend a lot on technology, we may not have the right solutions."
Getting the message across is made more difficult by some of the very technology that manufacturers want to plug. Gone are the days when an ad during Saturday morning cartoons would do the trick. Kids today split their free time among TV, video games, cellphones and the Web.
"The way to reach preteens is getting more complicated," said George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president for marketing. "We used to do TV; now we do a lot online."
Plus, kids of all ages are more savvy to advertising. So campaigns are more subtle and diffuse.
Nintendo, for instance, sells cellphone ring tones of the original Mario Brothers theme song. The Japanese game maker also sponsors an annual Fusion Tour, which has featured such bands as Fallout Boy, Story of the Year and Evanescence.
Not everyone thinks that hawking $1,500 computers or $5,000 televisions to grade schoolers is healthy for children.
"I find the concept of marketing to kids in order to influence their parents problematic because it creates dissension in families," said Juliet Schor, chairwoman of the Sociology Department at Boston College and author of "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture," a book critical of corporate marketing to children. "It's driving a wedge between parents and kids."
