To-day saw more progress on protecting children from commercialisation and sexualisation as No. 10 announced more actions in response to the Bailey Review of last June.  There is to be a consultation on extending the age rating system to more music DVDs and Blu-Ray discs; You Tube are to give the music industry the facility to label online videos as “explicit”; legislation for clearer age ratings for video games is to come into force in July; and the ASA is to investigate labelling “advergames” on the internet.

These measures come in addition to a range of announcements last October which included the launch of Parent Port by the media regulators; stricter guidelines by ASA on sexual imagery on billboards; “Active Choice” mechanisms by ISPs to allow parents to decide what they do and don’t want their children to access on the internet; and the current consultation by CAP on banning the involvement of under 16s in brand ambassador and peer-to-peer marketing campaigns.

It’s all good stuff.  It’s also encouraging to see the Children’s Minister Sarah Teather acknowledging that “many parents are fed up with their children being surrounded by adult images as they grow up and being targeted aggressively to get the latest “must-have” items” and that she believes, “the onus has to be on industry to stop undermining parents trying to bring up their own children, the way they want.”  In a government press release she goes on to say that, “we’re keeping the pressure up on businesses so they listen and act on parents’ concerns.  It’s not acceptable for industry to simply ignore families’ worries.”

I couldn’t agree with her more.  In fact this was the message of a Key Note I delivered to-day at the ISM-Open Social Marketing Conference on the theme of Taking Responsibility.   The last 4 years have seen 5 different Westminster-funded reports into the social consequences for children of corporate activities and we have learned a lot from these about how the commercial world affects children’s wellbeing as well as about the process of stakeholders taking responsibility.  It seems to me that the overwhelming message from evidence gathered in these reports is that, as Sarah Teather points out, parents are fed-up with fighting corporate activity.  As one parent interviewed for the Bailey Review put it, “there is a need for such a huge cultural shift away from consumerism that I feel powerless as an individual to act.” But parents shouldn’t have to act as individuals they should be supported by government, industry and, of course, each other.

The commercial world of course offers children all sorts of exciting things from toys and games to songs and style but we can’t deny that it also has negative social consequences. It is now quite clear from the evidence that TV advertising affects children’s health behaviours in relation to smoking, drinking alcohol and eating less healthy foods.  It’s also clear that size zero models do nothing for girls’ self-esteem just as the new “six-pack and stacked” male models do nothing for boys’.   We also now know that the theories we used to ascertain whether advertising to children is fair are badly outdated: whilst older children are capable of understanding TV adverts, they are no less susceptible than younger children to the effects of new immersive types of advertising such as advergames, product placements and co-creations.  We also know that what matters to children above all else is their relationships with their family and friends and that anything that interferes with these relationships is harmful.  That’s why brand ambassador programmes which essentially commercialise friendship are corrosive and why family arguments caused by the pestering which results from excessive adverting can have very negative effects on children’s mental wellbeing.

So any government pressure on industry to take its responsibility is welcome and industry has begun to respond.  However, the measures announced to-day and those announced last October will fail to make life easier for parents unless two further things happen.  Firstly there must be compliance mechanisms for any new measure introduced because with all the will in the world, unless there is some policing measure in place then a corporation’s profit motive will always win out over the responsibility agenda.  So the “consultations”, “guidelines” and “investigations” outlined above have to be followed through so that they are enshrined in a code which is rigorously enforced by an independent body (such as the ASA for advertising).  Secondly there must be awareness-raising amongst parents and amongst marketers.  To-day, in a hall of marketing academics highly attuned to debates over responsible marketing (and many of them parents) not a single person had heard of Parent Port and I suspect the same would be true in a hall of marketing managers.  A place to complain is completely useless if parents don’t know where it is.

So if responsible business is to remain responsible the fine words need to be matched with fine compliance and the message needs to be spread.  A small levy on advertisers could cover the cost of a mass advertising campaign to tell parents about peer-to-peer marketing; to explain what an advergame is and why it should be labelled; and to tell them what to do when they are “fed-up …with their children being aggressively targeted.”  If there was mass awareness of the effects of marketing on children then maybe parents would start to discuss it with their friends just like they do when they see a new product advertised on telly.  And maybe then they would stop feeling powerless to act as individuals and start to act collectively.  Perhaps this could be the beginning of what another Keynote speaker Frank den Hond was discussing at the conference to-day – a social movement by parents for parents to reclaim their children.

The Riots Communities and Victims Panel which was set up in the wake of last summer’s riots published its final report last week.  It had some interesting things to say particularly about brands.

My response is on the Guardian’s Sustainable Business Blog on the Children’s Hub.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/riots-brands-responsibility-young-people?intcmp=122

In my last post about the links between work culture, consumerism and child wellbeing I didn’t mention Borgen – but it seems that the Danish cult show is prompting women in this country to make the same links.

The BBC in Scotland and then in England has been talking to women MSPs and MPs …

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17090889

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17191248

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17193510

On February 6^th I was invited to give a talk at Godolphin and Latymer School for girls in West London.  The audience of parents, friends and students was highly involved and a great discussion was generated.  I was really impressed by the two Year 12 students who welcomed me as they had really done their homework on the subject.  The title was “Everyone thinks you’re awesome if you’ve got a Ferarri” (the words of a 10 year old boy in the research I recently did with Ipsos MORI for Unicef UK) and I examined the extent to which this is true in contemporary UK society.  Do we really think people are awesome just by dint of what they own?  Read the Unicef UK report which you can find on my website for the full answer … but the core of the message is that in a culture like ours in which there is both great income inequality and a high level of commercialism, the outcome for the happiness of our children (and indeed our parents) is not good.

New research is beginning to show a complex web wherein long working hours give parents little time to interact with their children but the money to buy them desirable brands.  And within our current culture of fearful parenting, parents also say that they buy these brands to stop their children being bullied.  When we stop to think about that it doesn’t make sense.  Buying your son an iPad might allow him to feel included for a couple of days but in the long term it won’t teach him how to be resilient or much about the dynamics of bullying.  But then, we rarely seem to have time to stop and think.

Whilst a standard response to consumer culture is to curb advertising and marketing, there are more complex forces at play which we also have to address.  I was most struck by a conversation I had with a mother after the event about the lack of senior-level part-time employment opportunities.  Parents in professional jobs who would like to spend more time and less money on their children can find themselves seriously compromised because employers who respect and accommodate parenthood are hard to find.  So they have to choose between a rewarding job and rewarding time with their children.  Surely we shouldn’t have to make this choice.

I think we have a new challenge in tackling the commercialisation of childhood  –  tackling our employment culture.