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Toy Story by David Cohen Advertisers like to take advantage of childrens natural credulity. In a world full of dazzling advertisements, how do children react to them? Have they learned how to weigh up advertising before they succumb to its promises? “Whys that man got his hand up a sock? Dont they know how to do it properly? Thats not going to get me to buy it, is it?” carped one seven-year-old about the glove puppets used in Burger Kings The Lost World television advertisement. Call it cynicism. Call it sophistication. Nowadays its not unusual to find children as young as four making judgments like these, claims Nicky Buss of the advertising agency Ammirati Puris Lintas in London. By then children are “brand literate” and they can see through “marketing hyperbole”. Or can they? Is advertising geared at children even ethical? Since the 1970s, the battle between the forces for and against child advertising has hinged on whether or not kids understand the motive behind advertising. The debate is far from over, but new studies suggest that Buss is onto something. Either children are getting wise to the advertising game, and at an earlier age than in the 1970s and 1980s, or in the past psychologists underestimated their young subjects ability to work out other peoples motivation. It doesnt take a genius to work out why advertisers are trying harder to market directly to children. British children aged four to fourteen spend an average of ￡2.49 each week. This makes the pocket money market worth more than?ê1.5 billion a year, according to a recent report from management consultancy Datamonitor. In the US the pocket money market is worth a massive $64 billion a year. Selling to children has become big business, and advertisers want to make it as scientific as possible. Winthrop Publications in London has just launched the International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children. One article reports that 60 per cent of children aged two to eleven know by the e