What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids [Hardcover]

Dan S./Reiher,Robert H.,Ph.D. Acuff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998

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, Nestle, 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Joel Ehrlich Senior Vice President, DC Comics/Warner Brothers Promotions Acuff and Reiher know more about the inner workings of kids than anyone I know. Their approach to understanding how children behave will give marketers tremendous insight into how to target messages and products that really meet kids' needs. -- Review

About the Author

Dan S. Acuff, PH.D., is President of Youth Market System Consulting and, along with Dr. Robert H. Reiher, is among the world's leading specialists on youth-related products and programs. He has served as a consultant to more than fifty major kid-targeting corporations. Dr. Acuff lives and works in Glendale, California.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Printing edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684834480
• ISBN-13: 978-0684834481
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,362,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for people in or around the kids business, November 4, 1999

By 

Paul Kurnit ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids (Hardcover)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I was looking for, November 12, 2002

By 

Julie Finlay, Director of Youth Publications,... (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids (Hardcover)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Feels like reading a sales pitch, July 28, 1998

By 

Rejean Roy (Montréal, Québec, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids (Hardcover)

Not worth it. With a title like that, you'd think the author would provide a strong bibliography, some hard-to-find figures, real-life cases... Not at all. His book reads more like a self-promo written in point form around obvious concepts. Not the kind of material we're used to coming from Free Press.