Because marketing is so pervasive and powerful in today’s culture, youth workers need to be aware of the many advertising strategies marketers employ in their efforts to influence children’s and teens’ spending decisions. Of course, the main goal of marketing is to sell products, but marketing actually is more effective at shaping worldviews, beliefs and behaviors. By knowing how advertising works and the beliefs and behaviors that marketing sells, we are better equipped to help kids understand marketing and how it manipulates and influences consumers. By having this awareness, we can equip our young people to think Christianly about marketing in ways that allow them to resist messages that steer them away from God’s will. One of the most important steps we can take in leading our kids to a deep and life-shaping faith is to train them in skills that will put them on the road to being discipled and shaped by Christ and His Word, rather than being discipled and shaped by advertising and its messages.

Every advertisement we see is calculated carefully regarding message, method and placement. There is nothing haphazard in a marketing strategy or campaign; everything is deliberate. Behind every second or page of advertising lie hundreds of hours of market research and strategizing. One very effective strategy that marketers employ to reach, influence and shape children and teens is called age aspiration.

Adolescence is the bridge between childhood and adulthood, and our kids want to get there fast. Marketers know children and teens want to feel, look, be perceived, and be treated as being older than they are. As a result, market research has been done to discover what ages various aged children and teens aspire to be. Market researcher Peter Zollo says, “The gap between how old teens are and how old they would like to be narrows steadily as they age.” Research shows that 12- and 13-year-olds aspire to be is 17; 14- and 15-year-olds aspire to be 18; 16-year-olds aspire to be 19; and 17- to 19-year-olds aspire to be 20. Marketers consider age aspiration as they create ads to reach the targeted age by catering to the aspired age. In effect, marketers exploit a young person’s desire to grow up, thereby thrusting things that are increasingly seen as acceptable adult-like beliefs and behaviors onto kids at younger and younger ages.

The formula holds true for children 12 and younger, as well. Because young children look up to older children, ads for products targeting younger children often feature older children using and enjoying the product. Consequently, young children see the product as sophisticated and mature.

Cigarrette and alcohol companies have employed this strategy for years. By picturing young adults in situations where they are smoking, drinking and having fun, young viewers are led to believe smoking and drinking are signs of maturity. Marketing critic Susan Linn says, “Many of the models I’ve seen in beer commercials look young enough to be [younger than 21]. The themes or stories portrayed in some alcohol commercials seem more relevant to underage drinkers than anyone else.”

Magazines, particularly those targeting teenaged girls, employ the strategy, as well. Seventeen magazine might be read by a few 17-year-olds, but younger teens are drawn to the magazine because of age aspiration. The magazine’s editors and advertisers are aware of this fact and target an audience of middle-school aged girls. Seventeen-year-olds typically are drawn to magazines such as Cosmopolitan that target young women.

What does reality, presence and age aspiration mean for youth workers?

First, we need to recognize and follow the particular ways marketers employ the strategy. I’ve often said that marketers know more about youth culture than any other group. They not only study youth culture as a part of their market research, but also create and shape youth culture as a strategy to sell products and make money. Consequently, we first should find out where our kids are spending their media time so we can take a field trip into their media to examine the marketing messages placed there. While there, we should work to discern what beliefs and behaviors these ads are selling.

Second, we should share our findings with parents. Because parents are called by God to bear the primary responsibility for the spiritual nurture of their children, we must share with them what we discover so they are able to bring the corrective light of the gospel to bear on the beliefs and behaviors propagated by marketing.

Finally, we need to take active steps to bring marketing’s messages into our teaching. When you discover an ad that promotes worldview elements contrary to the gospel, watch or look at the ad with your students. Think with them about the ad, helping them see how the ad skews God’s order and design. Help them see that to grow up in Christ, we must aspire to be Christ-like. True maturity is a target that looks very different from the images marketing sells.

Because of where they are developmentally, all kids aspire to move quickly from the childhood of their pasts into adulthood that, for them, is something they want to experience in the now father than the future. As youth workers, we are uniquely positioned to steer them away from aspirations that only lead to emptiness, while leading them to aspire to the completeness in Christ for which they’ve been made.