Influence Marketing - Letting the Children Win

This weeks chapter was all about subcultures. There are so many subcultures that we could dive into and the people within them find themselves very influenced at times. One of the biggest influences in many families are the children. Specifically, children often times are the driving factor when it comes to impulse purchases. As we learned in this chapter, children are very much so a part of the decision making process. Today, I'm specifically discussing influence marketing - parental yielding. This is when a parent says no, but after a while the parent tends to surrender to the request of the child.

Recently, I was a local family friendly festival. There's food, games, little booths, music, and more. There's great atmosphere and beautiful weather. As I was walking around, I wondered who would spend the extreme amounts of money on the light up toys, small snacks, or light up cups. Shortly after wondering this, the answer became very apparent.

A child sees another child with cotton candy and almost instantaneously you'll hear a cry that says something along the lines of, "Mommmmm, I want cotton candy". The mother would of course reply that the child didn't need that, but of course a child is very persistent and continues to beg and plead for cotton candy. If I were to have followed this little family around, soon I'm sure I'd realize that the mother gave in to the temptation of which her child presented her with.

Although this doesn't always apply to children who want sweet foods (because some parents have defenses like offering pre-packed snacks) it is a common trend. Some parents just don't know how to handle children, or children just know how to push their parents' buttons. So, who really makes the decisions around here?