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Paperback
Publisher: Touchstone
If you're in the business of marketing or developing products and programs for kids, What Kids Buy and Why belongs in your office. How can you create outstanding products and programs that will win in the marketplace and in the hearts of kids and parents? Dan S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher have invented a development and marketing process called Youth Market Systems that puts the needs, abilities, and interests of kids first. This system makes sure you won't miss the mark whether you're trying to reach young children or teens, boys or girls, or whether you're selling toys, sports equipment, snacks, school supplies, or software. Based on the latest child development research, What Kids Buy and Why is chock-full of provocative information about the cognitive, emotional, and social needs of each age group. This book tells you among other things—why 3-through-7-year-olds love things that transform, why 8-through-12-year-olds love to collect stuff, how the play patterns of boys and girls differ, and why kids of all ages love slapstick. What Kids Buy and Why is the result of Acuff and Reiher's almost twenty years of consulting with high-profile clients including Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Microsoft, Nestlé, Tyco, Disney, Pepsi, Warner Brothers, LucasFilm, Amblin/Spielberg, Mattel, Hasbro, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Quaker Oats, General Mills, Broderbund, Bandai, Sega, ABC, CBS, I-HOP, Domino's, Hardee's, and Kellogg's. Special features include: an innovative matrix for speedy, accurate product analysis and program development a clear, step-by-step process for making decisions that increase your product's appeal to kids tools and techniques for creating characters that kids love Here is the complete one-stop tool for understanding what children of all ages want to buy.
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| says the same thing over and over |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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----Preschoolers are fascinated with animals and are receptive to animal models. In fact, research shows that the majority of preschoolers' dreams are about animals.
----Preschoolers prefer round, fuzzy animals with no visible teeth, whereas older children are receptive to more threatening animals, such as the Tazmanian Devil.
----Bugs Bunny has something for children of all ages: slapstick for younger kids and verbal humor for older kids. This is called "layering."
----Boys are less receptive to girl models than girls are to boy models.
----Computer games have had little success with girls. Some girls play computer games, but 80% of them use games purchased for a male friend or relative.
----In order to be accepted by peers, children find it necessary to disparage anything designed to appeal to younger children. However, an older child considers it safe to eat breakfast cereal promoted by cartoon animals in the privacy of his or her own home. This is called the "billboard effect."
All of the above facts, including even the statistics, are stated over and over. I agree with Rejean Roy. I'd like to see a little more content in those 194 pages. This is the most repetitious book I've read since Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
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| Just what I was looking for |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I've been on a quest to figure out of the optimal youth age breaks based on cognitive abilities, and this book gave me exactly what I was looking for. I was fascinated by the content on both a professional and personal level...I would love to see the authors update the book with some more current product examples (it was published in 1997) and to see what further impact the growth of Internet usage since 1997 has had on the market.
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| Excellent book (even for software developers)! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I finished this book last night without regrets. It lit up many ideas that could be realized into revenue generating opportunities. Although the book doesn't encourage the sales of 'disempowering' products, services and programs for 0-19 year kids, it does give you insights as to why kids love 'bad' stuff too. I would have wanted more info on the 16-19 year olds though. But the author did state that these 'kids' consider themselves as adults and recommended marketing to adult books. Perhaps, the books The $100 Billion Allowance and Wise Up to Teens would help expand on what this book already taught me.
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| refreshing responsibility |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Although this book approaches the child marketing area from a unique view (developmentally), what I found refreshing was the attention to responsible marketing according to children's ages (chpt. 2!
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| A must read for people in or around the kids business |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Acuff and Reiher are two of the best practitioners in the kids market today. They combine tremendous experience across a number of kid categories with a discipline and method that are unique. Their book What Kids Buy and Why offers many of their important insights and trends about kids. Their approach is developmental and psychological. Their perspective is grounded in brain development with a sound underpinning of why kids behave as they do at specific ages and across gender. This is stuff that is critical to marketers in understanding how kids behave. Their work offers the long view of child development brought up to date with important marketplace developments that are showing how kids are changing even as the biology that shapes behavior has a constancy. There are too few books -- let along quality ones -- in the kids market today. Acuff and Reiher's offering is a must read for anyone interested in kids marketing. Paul Kurnit, President, Griffin Bacal Advertising, Kid Think Inc. and LiveWire: Today's Families Online.
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