Customer Reviews

Kidnapped: How Irresponsible Marketers Are Stealing the Minds of Your Children

5 star:		(3)
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3 star:		(1)
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Someone asked the bank robber, Willie Sutton, why he kept robbing banks. His famous reply was "because that's where the money is." In recent decades marketers have discovered that there is a tremendous amount of money in the child and youth market. Consequently the intensity and sophistication of marketing strategies targeting youth are growing all the time. Dan Acuff and Robert Reiher have amazing insights into this because it is the world they have lived in for many years. They combine expertise in developmental psychology with years of experience advising the top companies in the world to pull back the curtain and expose how irresponsible marketers manipulate kids to buy, buy, buy. But they don't just describe the problem. They provide solutions for parents and guidelines for responsible marketers.
The result is a book that is an enjoyable read and loaded with great "insider" information. I would encourage all parents to read the book and would hope that some marketers would take the advice to heart.

There is no shortage of marketers using irresponsible and unethical techniques to make a buck off our children. These people and companies take advantage of the child's age and innocence to mold their minds. The problem is not only that this is unethical but that over time it creates permanent changes in the child and alters their personality as well as their health. The bottom line here is that marketers will always target our children as yet another tool to be used to sell product. As such it is the responsibility of the parents to control the factors that influence their children for good and bad. The authors separate the sections of the book to include what is appropriate for birth to age three, three to seven, eight to twelve, thirteen to fifteen, and sixteen to nineteen. For each of these age groups they cover developmental issues, areas to watch and areas where you can expand their exposure to the world and difficult issues. You may disagree, as I did, with some of the detail but overall it is an insightful and interesting read. Even if you don't agree with all of it you are sure to find the greatest part of Kidnapped highly informative and helpful for raising children. As such it is a recommended read.

Is it possible we can rescue our children from mental and emotional corruption, as well as physical addiction and illness created by ignorant, profit-driven marketing? With KIDNAPPED, the answer is a resounding YES! In user-friendly style, Drs. Acuff and Reiher identify key threats to today's young people. More importantly, they provide pricelessly innovative solutions every parent and marketer can employ.
Thankfully, there actually are ways marketers can make handsome profit while at the same time contributing to nurturing our children's mental and physical welfare. It's up to each of us to make sure this happens. Our future and the future of our children make KIDNAPPED a must read for everyone!
Rama Fox, M.A.

Virtually from birth, children are bombarded by manipulative advertising messages, in their home, at school, and on the street. Profit driven - direct target marketing to children has allowed ads to infiltrate almost all aspects of their everyday lives and existence. Marketers have invaded the realm of childhood spending enormous amounts of time and money conducting research on how to most effectively reach young audiences, unrelentingly exploiting our youth. In their book Kidnapped, authors Dan Acuff and Robert Reiher take a unique stance from within the industry questioning some of the manipulative practices that exploit the vulnerabilities of our children and hold accountable those irresponsible marketers whose profit-driven tactics harm the well being & future of our youth.
Drs. Acuff & Reiher offer helpful tools for parents, family, & educators, to combat youth-marketing practices along with offering healthy alternatives towards limiting commercial exposure and marketing influences. However, parents alone cannot combat a multi-billion dollar industry vying for the pockets & brand loyalty of their children - but this book is evidence that from within the industry itself, the unethical practices are starting to come into question - which in turn leaves hope for change.

I decided to read this book based on all of the positive reviews. I've been trying to figure out what the marketers are up to. I can't help notice the drastic changes in marketing to children in recent years and I'm trying to figure out what's behind it all. I've noticed, for example, that they're starting to sneak commercials even into "commercial-free" children's programming like PBS and that McDonald's is a sponsor of Sesame Street. I've also noticed the car advertisements that infer your "tween" should dictate what type of car you should buy. I was hoping this book would shed some light on what goes on in the think tanks at marketing firms.

I would say it does explain to the consumer the general motives of the marketing industry. The authors go one step further and try to tell parents how to deal with the onslaught of marketing their children are bound to be subjected to. This is actually the part of the book with which I had the most problem. The most annoying part of the book by far was at the end of each chapter, where the authors have a hypothetical example of a "perfect" family that does everything "right" and a "bad" family that does everything "wrong." The examples given are so extreme that they are ridiculous, even laughable. The idealized pictures of the "perfect" families seem a little naive as well. For example, there is a teenage boy who has a TV in his room, but he's only allowed to watch it on the weekends, and he always complies with that rule. The overall advice given is basically common sense and what parents hear again and again-- model good habits yourself, stay involved in your child's life, and communicate with your child. However, this book takes the naive point of view that that is all you have to do to have an ideal child-parent relationship like those illustrated in the book.

I think there is something more going on with this youth marketing explosion that can only be explored by reading the books that are actually written for marketers. I did see some of these quoted as sources. It would probably be better to go right to the source.

Books on the welfare of our children are always of interest to me. Those who do not have a voice need others to care and to speak out for them. This is what our authors do in this outstanding work.
What are they fighting for? The minds, the health, the spirit of our beloved children.
They show numerous areas where our child are under assault by Marketers that single them out by way of TV, advertisements and peer pressure for the profit. They discuss the impact that violence has on our children through television and video games and give statistics that are alarming of suicide among our youth.
In this work we are taught how to recognize these assaults and given guidelines that we can implement to safe-guard our children. I think what I liked about this book was that it was not a total bashing of producers of entertainment for our children, but a work that one: shows there is a problem, two: gives solutions for parents and marketers as well that will benefit all.
A very informative and helpful book that would be a worthwhile read for all parents.