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The Rediff Business Special/ Neena Haridas

Pester power: Can children influence papa's decisions?

Nokia has a naughty eight-year-old girl looming large from the billboards thrusting the 3210 in your face.

Onida's salesman goes blue in the face (literally) trying to convince his 10-year-old customer that the Candy brand does not come in a vanilla flavour.

Papa finds it hard to decline his six-year-old's request to give half the school a ride back home in his squeaky new Fiat Uno.

When papa nicks his chin while shaving, the toddler crawls up with a tube of Boroline in its cute hands.

Of course, whenever mom hears "mummy, mummy, bhook lagi hain'' she knows what's cooking.

Marketing minds are finally taking kids seriously. Millions are being splurged on striking the right chord with the Chunu, Munnu, Pinkis of every home. In other words, marketers are realising that the road to a customer's heart (and mind) is the child at home. From cell phones, cars and soaps to noodles and potato chips, children seem to have a say in it all.

So, how real is pester power? A recent study by AC Nielsen reveals that children do have the ability to influence their parents's decisions. The pester power is best displayed when it comes to toys and games, where in a market of Rs 362 crore (Rs 3.62 billion) , 41 per cent of the purchases are influenced by kids -- i e Rs 148 crore (Rs 1.48 billion) worth of business. This may not be such a surprise -- after all, who else would decide between Barbie and GI Joe?

But children can be quite persuasive even in more adult areas. For instance, toothpaste. In the Rs 988 crore (Rs 9.88 billion) toothpaste market, 65 per cent of the business is estimated because of kids.

But what has changed in the last 10 years? Why are marketers suddenly concentrating on kids so much?

Says Suhel Seth, CEO, Equus Advertising, "Generation Next kids are well aware of what is happening in the marketplace, for they are exposed to a lot of advertising both on television and outdoors. So be it television sets, cellphones or the new video game in town, children are well educated about the brands available and the prices. However, the moot question is how far does the child's word go in the buying decision. After all, it is the adult parent who spends the money and actually buys the product. Hence, it is very important for a marketer to understand the buying pattern before they really target the ads at children. At times the line is ambiguous in the kids-specific market too because these products may be premium priced and the parent my not be in a position to yield to the child's whims."

Hence, companies such as Frito Lays, Nestle or Candico find it easy to sell their products targeted at children because they are low-priced fast-moving consumables.

However, this is not always true. Johnson & Johnson realised a couple of years ago that selling kids soap is not exactly child's play, especially when your product is priced as high as Rs 28 for 75 gm.

J&J could not strike the right chord with kids despite the use of jazzy colours. The company re-launched its Kids brand in a new star-shaped avatar in August to attract the little ones.

J&J now plans to have intensive advertising and numerous activities involving kids to generate top of mind recall for its brand. "We need to create a lot of excitement around the brand," says Anita Pande, client services controller, Ammirati Puris Lintas.

Explains marketing guru Shunu Sen, "Children are an important part of the 'family' for a marketer. It would be a good idea for a toothpaste marketer to address the children, though for a consumer durables marketer children may not be the right bet."

Despite apprehension from market gurus, consumer durables marketers are trying hard to influence children. Says Seth, "It is here that market behaviour becomes ambiguous. It is easy for a parent to decide on X candy because his child wants it, or Y brand of soap because his daughter likes it. But it is quite another issue if the child insists on Z brand of television."

Nokia defends its using a child in its 3210 advertisement saying, "We want to stress on our human technology aspect. We want to show the ease of use and the add-on features that make it exciting. You see, very often you will see children using our phones to play a game while their parents are busy with something else."

Market studies have also shown that children are more tuned to swadeshi brands, and hence brands such as Onida, BPL, Videocon in consumer durables or Ruf n Tuf in apparel would do well to talk to the kids.

AC Nielsen found that kids aged between 7 and 18 in India were definitely inclined towards swadeshi in terms of brand preferences. Consider this: To the question 'Which is your favourite jeans brand', about 43 per cent of Indian kids said Ruf 'n' Tuf, a local brand from Arvind Mills. As far as their favourite sport shoe was concerned the choice was swadeshi again: 'Action'.

Says Duncan Morris, associate director (media research division) A C Nielsen, China, "In India, it is not totally foolish to target a bit of the ad spend at children. You see, our study shows that Indian children are the most decisive in their preferences, be it career, most hated food or favourite drink. For instance, when we asked what was the most hated food, children from all over Asia responded 'vegetables', but in India, the kids were very specific and said 'idli'."

Adds he, "Children can be really specific in their tastes and preferences and sure have strong likes and dislikes, and advertising has an impact on them. But, and this is important, whether advertisements really prompt children to buy a product is still ambiguous. For instance, during our survey, a majority of the children voted the Pepsi ad as their favourite, but said Coca-Cola was their favourite drink!"

As Seth puts it, "Kids may be confused, but they are confused pests and that makes them important and powerful!"

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