RISHON LEZION, Israel — After learning that clothing companies are now selling padded bras designed for six-year-old girls, Katharine Mieszkowski interviews M. Gigi Durham, the author of the new book “The Lolita Effect.” (I wonder what methods marketing schools are now teaching students.) This comment is very insightful:
In the mid-‘90s there was a lot of disposable income floating around and tweens became a very important niche market for a number of industries. One research firm Euromonitor posits tweens spending $170 billion in 2006. So, this is a wealthy little group of people.
Marketers realized they could create cradle-to-grave consumers by marketing products to kids very early. Then, they would develop brand loyalties, and consumer practices that they would sustain throughout their lifetimes. It was very profitable to start marketing these products to very young kids.
Also, as women have made tremendous gains politically and in the workforce, grown women are moving away from this traditional model of femininity where women are supposed to be docile and passive. And little girls still conform to that very traditional ideal of femininity. So I think that increasing attention is being focused on little girls as embodying ideal femininity…
Marketing to children is nothing new, of course. That was one of the main reasons that McDonald’s became so successful: restaurants with playgrounds, Happy Meals, and Ronald McDonald all instilled a love of the brand in children, who would then become devoted consumers for life. (Read this for more background.) Personally, I’ve always thought that Burger King’s hamburgers tasted better, anyway.
However, people with a marketing degree using sexual themes to market to children is fairly new, and so is selling products whose themes are overtly sexual — even in e-mail marketing services, bulk e-mail marketing, and e-mail marketing solutions. What happened?
It’s a simple example of the slippery slope: As overt and explicit sexuality became more mainstream, more and things became viewed as acceptable. A generation of girls raised in such an environment produces only Girls Gone Wild! (warning: explicit), in which college girls strip in front of cameras, as well as parents who buy thongs for children. (By the way, read this profile of Girls Gone Wild! founder Joe Francis. It will make you cringe.)
I hope — and predict — that these attitudes towards sex are the extreme end of a pendulum shift, and soon it will begin moving towards the opposite end in any e-mail marketing campaign, marketing automation, and Internet-marketing training.
Each generation typically rebels against the prior one. While Puritanical attitudes towards sex are harmful, so is extreme licentiousness. When I lived in Jerusalem, I saw the benefit of living in a culture that places a great importance on modesty. While this attitude can be taken to an extreme, I think it is generally healthier for people and better for society.
Addendum: The competing desires within women to express their sexuality but not be viewed as a slut is one of the reasons that the modern dating scene in America is so difficult. My prior essay is here.