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Marketing professor raises awareness of children's vulnerability to Internet marketers
Web advertising
effectively reaches young surfers
When Deborah Moscardelli's 5-year-old son asked her how to spell "nick" she thought nothing of it. But when she watched him log onto the Nickelodeon Web site, she was shocked; he had never been taught how to surf the Internet.
"As a marketer I was amazed. As a parent I was mortified," said Moscardelli, assistant professor of marketing and hospitality services administration.
Moscardelli, an authority in the field of Internet marketing and advertising, e-commerce, and focus group research, decided to find out just how vulnerable children and teenagers are to advertising and marketing appeals on the Web.
Teens on the Web: A marketer's dream
"A lot of research had been done on how TV marketing affects kids, but the Internet hadn't been explored," Moscardelli said.
The 1998 Children's On-line Privacy Protection Act protects children under 13 from organizations soliciting personal information without parental consent. But the way Moscardelli saw it, this left teenagers wide open. According to the law, Internet marketers could treat them as adults.
After gathering information from teens and interviewing policy-makers and educators, Moscardelli discovered that teenagers obtain a considerable amount of their information from the Internet, especially avid users, who then become knowledgeable consumers.
These days, teenagers have more disposable income and develop brand loyalty at an early age, which bolsters a market's long-term future and creates a marketer's dream.
"Marketing to teens within a set guide of parameters is good because they need to be informed consumers," Moscardelli said. "But it's a problem when marketers take advantage of the young and collect data without caring about the customer. Most are cautious because using the Internet to harm doesn't make business sense."
Educating parents
about the power of the Internet
In her research, Moscardelli discovered a troubling trend: Parents don't pay attention to where their kids go in cyberspace.
"Parents assume that if the computer is in a public place, their children aren't going where they're not supposed to," Moscardelli said. "This is a false assumption and gives them a false sense of security. The computer is in the home, they think, so what can go wrong? What they don't know is their children are exposed to the world."
Moscardelli also discovered that teenagers tend to know more about the Internet than their parents.
"So who's life-guarding the swimming pool? The analogy is that basically you've got lifeguards who can't swim," Moscardelli said.
This lack of supervision leaves a huge segment of the market open to exploitation. Teenagers don't understand that they need to be careful. When they provide data about themselves, especially of a political or sexual nature, it becomes permanent.
"As adults, opinions they had as teenagers could come back to haunt them," Moscardelli said. "I see myself as a child and teen advocate. I'd like to see kids marketed to but also protected."
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