Branding

When it comes to the subject of branding, I think we can all agree from the readings that the target population when it comes to brand loyalty is becoming younger. We've read in the articles that brands can be marketing to ages as young as one or two years old in order to support brand loyalty, creating the sense of an individual "growing up" with the brand. Children as young as three-years-old are able to identify certain brands and have opinions about these brands. While in class, I got the feeling that people were not necessarily happy with this fact, but it did not seem like people were up in arms about it.

However, when the class discussed the military "brand" and its selective advertising, the class became somewhat divided and extremely passionate on the subject. As for myself, I am a little on both sides of the argument. Do I think it is ideal to be advertising to people under the age of 18 when we as a country are so against the idea of child soldiers in places like Africa? No. However, I believe that recruitment efforts do need to take a modern stance if the military wants to keep its numbers up (and so we can avoid a potential draft). 

The reason why I am so conflicted on this matter is that I fail to see the difference between the military "brand" and any other brand that markets to young people. Although one "brand" involves people physically going off to service and others just produce the idea that their product is needed, each party has the right to "back out" and not participate. Both aspects mainly boil down to the fact that children (and eventually our children one day if we choose to have them) are being influenced by products on almost a daily basis, and we only have so much influence on how these children view and interpret these brands. I think what we as a society can do to eliminate these so-called "blind" perceptions on these brands is to teach others how to interpret things for what they are - advertisements and make smart decisions about these products that will ultimately influence their lives (either through their pocketbook or physical abilities).

Also, while reading the article about the military, I couldn't help but think of this (I tried to find a good quality video):