Was anyone else struck by the madness of this morning’s headlines following the British Retail Consortium’s latest report? Or by the bizarre words we now seem to use to talk about shopping?

Apparently it’s a dreadful thing that we were all spending time with friends and family in August watching the culmination of 4 years of hard graft by some of our country’s most talented individuals. We should, instead, have been shopping. Why did no-one tell us it wasn’t about sport and community but about buying stuff? Perhaps it’s because with Olympic coverage on the ad-free BBC we had no corporations to tell us to get off the sofa and hit the high street.

Beyond this expectation that loyal Brits should take their shopping duties seriously, shopping has been anthropomorphised. On the one hand shopping is portrayed as an innocent victim of an evil onslaught as the newspapers tell us that shopping was “hurt by the Olympics” and “did not escape the Olympic impact” whilst online sales “suffered.” How do you feel about inflicting that pain? On the other hand shops and even particular consumer goods are held personally responsible for their inadequacies as they “failed to inspire spending” or turned in a “weak performance.” Even the good guys like the “usually reliable” online sales were castigated for not coming up to the mark.

According to the BRC “the country was ‘otherwise engaged’”. Well thank goodness for that! We actually didn’t feel the need to buy more stuff we don’t need and we got to know our mums and dads and mates again.

Surely, surely that’s cause for celebration!

The Bailey Review highlighted parents’ wish to have easy access to information about how the commercial world interacts with their children and easy ways to complain when they see something they don’t like.

Video games can cause concern and many parents want guidance about suitability of game content.

To-day the rating system for video games in the UK has become both simpler and more stringent.

Two points to note:

1. PEGI (Pan European Game Information)  www.pegi.info is now the sole age rating system
   used in the UK for video games.
2. It is illegal for a retailer to sell a video  game to a child below the age stated on the game.

This makes things simpler and more reassuring for parents  and is really good news.

The PEGI site is worth a visit as it has good information about  the rating system and how it is administered (by VSR – Video Standards Council http://www.videostandards.org.uk) and  also links to good independent sites such as CEOP https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/  It offers parents the opportunity to give positive feedback and also to complain.

Parents can also get information about how all children’s  media are regulated by going to  Parentport which was set up in response  to the Bailey Review  www.parentport.org.uk.  BUT Parent port need to update the site as it  doesn’t include the new information about video games yet!

ukie (The Association  for UK Interactive Entertainment) is also promoting the news about PEGI -which  is great.

Parents should, however, perhaps take their “askaboutgames”  site www.askaboutgames.com and  accompanying “Control.Collaborate.Create” advertising campaign with a small  pinch of salt.  ukie is the trade  association for the interactive games industry and so, of course, exists to  promote its members interests – ie sell more video games.  So it’s not surprising that the information  is rather biased with sweeping claims made about the benefits of video games for families with no evidence to back them up.

The CEO states in her press release that the site is there  to “encourage people to have honest and open conversations about games” yet  there don’t seem to be any real conversations going on with real parents nor  any signposting to where parents can feedback or complain about games or the  regulatory system.  It’s all positive  spin.  And of course it’s hard to see how  it can be anything else given the nature of the organisation.

But I have two questions about government putting the onus  on industry to “educate” parents.

1. Shouldn’t there be some requirement on a site  like “askaboutgames” to state very clearly that the information is provided by  a trade organisation not a neutral party?
2. Shouldn’t there be some controls on the  marketing activity on trade association sites?

There is a competition run on this site where 4-15 year olds are  encouraged to give out personal information (name, parent’s e-mail) in order to  vie to become national Ambassadors.  At a  time when the advertising industry has pledged not to use children under 16 as  Brand Ambassadors this seems to be out of line with current industry thinking  on responsible marketing.  Nothing wrong  with encouraging family creativity – but state your interests and collect the information from the parents not the 4 year olds!

And in Olympic week, wouldn’t families be better off taking  their kids outside into the fresh air to play some sport  …  Despite what it says on the site, video games are a lot more sedentary   than playing football in the park.

Have you seen Natural Childhood written for the National Trust by leading nature writer Stephen Moss?

It presents evidence that our children are displaying “Natural Deficit Disorder” and calls for us all to try to reverse this.

In a blog for the National Trust published to-day I argue that one driver of this phenomenon is commercialism.

Brands need to make money and need to deliver a uniform, risk-free experience.

The charm, joy and value of the natural world stands as a polar opposite being free of charge to experience whilst also being constantly changing and unpredictable.

What do you think?

This week the government launched a teaching pack for primary schools “to help children understand how images in the media and advertising are altered and the impact this can have on self esteem.”

This is a great idea and it’s definitely time that we had a conversation about the unrealistic body images used to sell everything from make-up and aftershave to cars.

But am I alone in thinking that the solution to the problem is not to use mono-size models and airbrushing in the first place?

It’s a bit like feeding people chocolate cake three times a day for three months and then spending lots of money and effort distributing a diet book.

According to recent work by Millward Brown and the Keller Fay Group 76% of us do not believe that advertising tells the truth but 68% of us trust our peers.  It’s not surprising then that advertisers want to harness peer-to-peer marketing.

But should companies be allowed to pay children under 16 in cash or in kind to promote products to their friends?

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) is currently conducting a review to help it decide if a ban on using children in this way as “Brand Ambassadors” should be part of its self-regulatory code.

Mumsnet have put a discussion thread on their website.  See what parents think.

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/1484760-Your-views-on-children-as-peer-to-peer-marketers