It is impossible to shop at Target without noticing those smiling, familiar, colorful, media-created characters sprinkled throughout the store. I had always been aware that children’s lives were commercialized but I had never considered how prevalent it actually is, until I browsed the Target kids clothes, games, and food and could literally not walk five feet without having a media tie-in product next to me.
This reality of media tie-ins for children is very purpose-driven. Children consume media so much in their everyday lives through television, internet, social media, tablets, phones and more that it only makes sense that advertisers and marketers would try hard to place their creations in non-media facilitated products like clothes, books, toys, games, and food. The Consuming Kids video discussed that the commercialization of children has grown since deregulation in the 1980s, giving media companies, networks, and producers basically free reign over child marketing strategies and practices. Kids are three markets in one: they have spending power with their own money, they have influencing power over what their parents buy, and they have the appeal of a future market as consumers for life. This explains the reason kids media is so heavily commercialized since, in our capitalist society, it is all about the money. More profits come from more products, so marketers are constantly thinking of ways to make their characters accessible through non-media outlets. Is this ethical?
As long as the characters are positive role models, I don’t find too much fault with this practice in terms of games and clothes. I have some concern that it creates a marketplace so saturated with familiar characters that it is impossible to make kids happy or satisfied with unfamiliar, new, non-media related characters. It could hinder independent game makers or toy companies since they don’t have that all-important character appeal like those of 
SpongeBob, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Disney Princesses…the list goes on. I worry that really good, beneficial (maybe even educational?) products are being overlooked. I must mention that I was actually glad to see Leapfrog Learning games featuring Monsters University, Cars, Dora the Explorer, and Sofia the First because it is using the characters to draw in educational content. My other issue with this commercialization is using kid-adored characters on foods that are not the healthiest – I noticed mac and cheese, cereal, fruit 
snacks, and yogurts that employed this technique. This isn’t 100% of the time: Annie’s, an organic and higher-end food company, had a mac and cheese with the Arthur shapes, and a pack of gala apples used Spiderman to encourage kids to “snack like a super hero!” In general, though, kids will automatically notice and reach for those foods even though there are healthier, more natural, less sugary options available that parents may not even be aware of.
This strategy works because kids love what is familiar. They develop trusting, emotional, positive relationships with these fictitious animals and people. This loyalty entices kids to incorporate their favorites into other aspects of their lives so they can constantly feel connected with them. Yes, I rolled my eyes when I saw kids’ character underwear, but then I realized that I was one of those kids! I definitely see that children’s culture is commercialized but it is no worse than a decade ago when I was a child. From birthday party decorations to swim trunks to backpacks to scooters, yes, media tie-ins are present. And yes, I have a concern that this marketing strategy is creating too much consumerism and an “I want” attitude in kids. But I am also of the perspective that a child drawn to Jake the Pirate, Hello Kitty, or Olaf isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
