Here we go again. Shades of those old candy cigarettes from yesteryear that went by the wayside. Kiddie Valentine treats plopped in a can of brewski?
Beer cans of ‘love buzz’ in the candy-n-kids section of WalMart have popped open some controversy. No alarmist implications of direct ties to teen substance abuse stats here, just a great big WHY?
Why is Cocaine in a Can being marketed to kids as ‘the legal alternative?’ WHY do we as consumers have to ask big box retailers to move ‘prescription pill candy’ away from the kids section?
WHY do we insist on marketing lousy adult habits in a kitsch-kiddie format for those wannabe tots ready to emulate the party hearty youth donning the billboard circuit? Why can’t people use their heads?
Maybe the FTC’s “Don’t Serve Teens” crew should query why retailers put ‘toys’ like this in the stuffed bear aisles of Valentine offerings giving a wink and nudge to chug-a-lug peer pressure and binge drinking.
Research already shows ads increase teen alcohol consumption, and alcopops and cute mini-keggers are targeting a younger, impressionable crowd to glamorize the tipsy ‘buzz’ and “Middle School Girls Gone Wild” behavior unleashed (or mirrored?) in pop culture.
As it is, the latest media study at CAMY (Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth) show alcohol ads have appeared every year on 13 or more of the top-15 programs most popular with kids 12-17 since 2001.
We don’t need to bump up the presence in the toy aisles too.
Toy products packaged as alcohol are like those little K-5 playground pretenders last week who were smoking pretzel sticks to be ‘cool’ and ‘edgy’…The difference is, marketers purposely packaged copy lines like ‘you intoxicate me’ and targeted kids.
According to the psychiatrist quoted in the article, “the purpose of packaging products to look like alcohol, cigarettes or drugs is to familiarize youth with the concept as well as to increase their comfort level.”
Um. Tell me, professor, WHY would we want to increase their comfort level when alcohol is kids’ ‘drug of choice’ to begin with?
No candy-coating here: Wal-Mart really needs to get a clue. They consistently keep tripping over themselves on the ethical front, from their executive dirty laundry to their labor practices and interactive targeting of kids’ pester power.
At least they agreed to move the beer can candy from the kiddie corner to lingerie.
Can’t WAIT to see what THAT category is selling to tots & kids this season…Ugh. Here’s the latest on tween targeting there.
Thankfully, we don’t have those wretched pole-dancing Pussycat Dolls for six year olds in their lace teddies this Valentine’s Day. We can thank Dads & Daughters for that one.
Again, it’s not about tracking whether beer can candy turns kids into alcoholics or risqué dolls turns girls into strippers, it’s the incredulousness of why anyone would want to create a product like that for kids to begin with. Why? Why? Why?
p.s. On a youth culture/alcohol footnote, two million viewers made Smirnoff’s preppy YouTube ‘Tea Partay’ rap a viral classic…But I dare say that’s hardly elementary school humor, targeting kids with candy in the beer-n-bear aisle…
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