Children as Experts

I've spent a lot of time and error - as have my friends and family - finding my way to what I consider "the best" foods, clothes, movies, cars, services for my money. We've all suffered through the car that needed thousands of dollars of work in its first year, the travel company that failed to stand behind its special offers, the cleaners who "cleaned" our suits to the transparency of fine china.

So it greatly annoys me to watch some pre-teen on television without an iota of real living yammer on about the wonders of a certain grape juice or the technical aspects of cable service. I admit that some of these little ones are humorous and can actually carry off the dialogue with a certain amount of sincerity (because nothing's worse than a kid who knows they're cute and banks on that). I will even admit that I look forward to the odd commercial with children, especially the one with the three toddlers and the crazy dad who watches in despair as his fancy watch gets flushed down the toilet - but hey, that's a likely situation, unlike my five year old granddaughter espousing the culinary merits of a cheese sandwich.

No, what I hate is when the marketing reps for these products fail to come up with a premise that I, as an educated, literate and informed adult can "buy". It might be charming to use a child but it's lazy. When you resort to children for anything but a child's product, you're resorting to the literary equivalent of chick-lit. You're risking alienating a great portion of your audience just to drag in the few who don't mind doing the same thing again and again because it's easier than seeking out true quality. This isn't rocket science. This is marketing. I wish we could see more of it.