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Toying With Emotions

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The Associated Press

Published: November 30, 2008

NEW YORK - In a season that inspires earnest letters about toys, one notable batch is being sent not by kids to Santa's workshop but by parents to the executive suites of real-world toy makers.

The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children.

The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.

"Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don't have the money," wrote Todd Helmkamp of Hudson, Ind. "By bombarding them with advertisements ... you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can't afford the toys you promote."

The Toy Industry Association has responded with a firm defense of current marketing practices, asserting that children "are a vital part of the gift selection process."

"Parents have trouble saying no," said Allison Pugh, a University of Virginia sociology professor. She says parents often buy toys to avoid guilt and ensure their children feel in sync with school classmates.

"Even under circumstances of dire financial straits, that's the last thing parents give up," Pugh said. "They'll contain their own buying for themselves before they'll make their child feel different at school."

In Columbus, Ohio, Erin Beth Dower Charron has been trying to brace her 4-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter for more subdued gift-getting this year as the family tightens belts.

"My 8-year-old is still holding out hope that Santa will get her that one special gift, but understanding this year may be different," Dower Charron said. "My son doesn't understand. Everything he sees, he wants."

Toy ads on kids' TV shows make the process harder, she said. "The onslaught seems to be more intense this year."

Dower Charron was among the hundreds of parents who took up the suggestion to write to toy companies.

"Help me understand why your toy is the better one for my child, and why it should be one of the few I can afford," she wrote. "Don't leave that up to my children."

The director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, psychologist Susan Linn, said she and her colleagues don't expect toy companies to stop advertising - rather, they want the ads directed at parents.

The big toy makers aren't likely to redirect their ads for one fundamental reason, according to Richard Gottlieb, a New York-based consultant to the industry.

"Toy companies advertise to children because it works, to be brutally honest," Gottlieb said.

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