I'm the new father of an 8-month-old boy named Jacoby. I'm also new to a market in Europe that's just now unfolding itself to me, called kidswear.
I never even used to notice ads for kids' clothing. Now, all I can see are ads for kids' clothing -- from Stockholm to Rome. In Florence Airport you can't miss a huge poster featuring Diesel kids. And in Paris, these days, you can't walk down the Rue St. Germain without passing a poster featuring a kids' clothes brand.
Proof, if we needed it, that those European media planners must kind of know what they're doing.
I've been told that you need to take your infants seriously as children, especially here in Europe. But how am I supposed to relate an unending range of fashionable, cool, funky toddler wear to a human being whose idea of cool cannot go deeper than the sensation of chocolate ice cream in his toothless mouth?
And yet, on a recent trip to Italy, I was amazed by the huge role fashion -- and fashion advertising -- for kids plays there. Major firms like Replay, Diesel, Pinco and others prove that their very elaborate brand messages for kids can be just as professional as those for their adult counterparts. In fact, Italian fashion for kids has the largest number of designer labels produced only for kids.
Indeed, the mindset in Europe is changing -- but not always as one might expect. In kidswear, they used to design clothes that made the little romper look like an adult...and many brands still do this. The ads show infants as if they were closing a major deal or negotiating a serious lifelong relationship.
 |
But a new trend is emerging in communications. In fact, it is amazing to realize that the new trend is more about flaunting youth, with images in ads that show we're not using kids as design objects like "mini-me's" of ourselves. Rather, the ads respect them and their real needs as one-year-olds.
One photographer who has captured this new tendency in images for communications is Martin Parr of the UK, known for his colourful close-ups pictures of reality. In a recent article he said: "I don't like the kind of sentimentality you see in photos of children."
A recent brainstorming session with David Ellis, partner of Why Not Associates of London (one of Europe's leading design agencies), found us talking about all of this, and wondering (David's also a proud father): Are these fashions in any way catered to the kids' tastes?
Let's be totally frank. Of course they are meant for the idiotic adult parental preferences for uber-fashion. And ditto on the ads that push this stuff, created by adults who are to blame for all the marketing out there. Kids are notoriously influenced by marketing, but their power as consumers clearly is circumscribed by their lack of earning capacity -- and, as infants, their inability to articulate their preferences.
Why is this happening? As parents, aren't we supposed to be ultra-conservative? Shouldn't we prefer that our babies wear simple blues or pinks? Aren't we supposed to be in a recession, anyway? These days, isn't it difficult to get parents to cough up three times the price for a designer shirt?
Roberta Bantel, a senior account director at StrawberryFrog, put it this way: "One of my god-sons is just 3 months old. His mother cannot afford to go out for dinner but will make sure her baby is dressed with designer's clothes. It drives me crazy. CRAZY."
Why can't we grown-ups be smarter than this as consumers? Why give in to our hormonal needs for pleasing the kids? Why not stand up for uniformity and make a statement about anti-style for kids, without attitude and cool and undertones of sexuality?
Pushing this one step further leads me to question what we, as advertisers do -- which is to make ads to sell a style, a taste and ultimately the merchandise (as in the case of kids' wear) but also to create and lead culture. In an advanced consumer society, we don't deny the pleasures of consumption to our children for the same reason we don't deny these pleasures to ourselves. And so it's only natural that we compromise on own little luxuries rather than those of our kids.
Take me, for example. I've readily handed over wads of cash for nifty little shirts and pant outfits for my son, designed by fashionable Bonpoint of Paris. Crazy? Stupid? Affected by the ads? Yes, yes and YES!
In Amsterdam, where StrawberryFrog just happens to be located, I'm a regular at Oilily. I love the colourful ads Oilily makes - and we've bought a lot of stuff that Jacoby's worn once or perhaps twice. And Diesel? Well, maybe not before he's three. Then Jacoby can better dress as a rebel.
And when he's old enough to start actually asking for stuff -- well, then we're really in trouble. 
Scott Goodson is co-founder and creative partner of StrawberryFrog, an international advertising agency that just happens to be located in Amsterdam. Employing more than 40 people from 20 different nations, in addition to a collective of talent around the globe, StrawberryFrog since its 1999 launch has worked for Ikea, Interbrew, Sony Ericsson, Levi Strauss, Sprint, Nokia, Pfizer, United Pan Communications, Credit Suisse, Mini, Microsoft Corp., Swatch, Smart Car, and Xerox
|
