Pester Power and Children's TV Programming

Some marketing entities, who will remain nameless, don't just present products and services to potential consumers; they ram it down customers' throats with annoying frequency. Often, the adds appear to have been placed in the wrong time slots.

It's called "pester power," and it's becoming fairly common, especially during children's TV programming. Here are some reasons it bugs me, specifically when it comes to my kids!

First of all, I have very young children (three kids under the age of 5), and everything they see on commercials, they want. They have no way to discriminate between products; it all looks fun, so they want it.

I think there should be NO commercials during programming for children. PBS does this, for the most part, but they still have sponsored shows by McDonald's and other brands, so kids still see it. At least they're on the right track, though.

Secondly, I find it annoying that advertisers use children's programming time to advertise products to parents. The other day, I saw a soap commercial during Nick Jr. I understand that parents should be watching TV with their kids; we try to at our house as much as possible, but I know that a lot of people don't have the time to do it, and it's impossible to do it 100% of the time, so then kids are left watching ads for things they don't even understand. It becomes a drain on their delicate brains as well as advertisers' dollars.

I am, by writing this, making myself into a hypocrite, though. It’s my business to market products; I AM THE ENEMY. Fortunately, my current employer sells computer networking equipment, so I don’t think we’ll be appearing during Dora the Explorer any time soon!