Remember when Saturday mornings were all about eating that gargantuan bowl of Lucky Charms and watching your favorite cartoons? Well, professional advertisers were well aware of your weekend rituals to exhibit the newest selection of toys every single weekend. All of the TV commercials resembled the same formula; show children playing with the toys and having an absolute blast.
Today, it’s roughly the same formula. The only difference is that the kids aren’t actors. They’re just ordinary kids that play with a certain toy as their parents record them. Then, they upload the video to YouTube where other children will go and watch. The children in these videos use their own imagination on how they play with the toys. Much different to back in the day when the kids were scripted by others on how to play with them.
Advertisers love that children and their parents are uploading these videos. They showcase the toys in a manner so other kids can have a personal connection with the toy like the kids in the video. They also don’t have to go searching for talent. Instead, parents corral the kids to show them what they're playing with while the camera is on and then pay them. This form of user-generated content works extremely well with kids. What kid can resist wanting to play with someone else's toy?
I decided to talk about how advertisers position toys to young children because my first born son was welcomed to this world earlier this week. I can totally see us creating videos like these when he’s older. So keep a look out for Everett Duke in about four or five years.