Marketing to children

There's been a huge furore recently over Diva selling Playboy brand jewellery in their stores. Apparently, it's a 'cute bunny' and people want it, so they're selling it. A lot of people are making the point that if you don't like it, don't buy it. They're missing the point.

The point is that Diva markets their jewellery, not only to adults, but also to children as young as nine. This means that children cannot help but see the Playboy range when they go into a Diva store. So what, you say? It's not like they're putting pictures of half-naked women on the walls, what does it hurt that there's a cute bunny on some jewellery? It's what that cute bunny represents - that the point. Playboy is synonymous with porn. Plain and simple. Those in favour of the range say it's tasteful nudity and nothing to get riled up about. It empowers women. More on that later ...

I spent some time reading both sides of the argument and looked into the Playboy empire some more. Everyone knows the magazine, but did you know about the Playboy channel where hard-core porn is shown? Movies that degrade women and show them to be subservient to men? I'm not a prude but I draw the line at children as young as nine being linked to this kind of enterprise.

Playboy magazine empowers women? Since when? How does posing half naked, living with an 85 year old man (and having to share him!), being told what to do, when to do it and when to be home, empower these women? They're not accomplishing anything, they're not using their brains (except the ones that get out of the situation!) and are valued only for their face and body.

That cute bunny cannot be separated from the Playboy empire. Even if the young girls don't know what it means, the adults looking at them wearing it sure do. Why should we expose our youth to this at that age? There's plenty of time for that later. Let kids be kids for as long as they can.

Companies spend millions creating a brand that is synonymous with what that company sells. The golden arches, the tick, the green crocodile, the entwined c, the apple with a bite out of it, D&G, car badges. I bet you knew exactly which company uses each of those symbols, right? And you have a reaction to each of them, positive, negative or neutral, depending on your experience with that company. That's what branding is - getting you comfortable with a logo, so next time you see it, you know what it stands for. Do we want our girls getting comfortable with the bunny logo? Maybe the next thing they see with the bunny on it is a DVD from the Playboy Channel, so they watch it.

Instead of spending time exposing children to this, we need to spend time modelling behaviour to children that is positive. We need to tell our children, especially young girls, that their value does not lie in their face, their body, or between their legs; it lies in their brain, their confidence, their personality, and their inner self.