Getting kids to help market your products is cheap and effective, but is it right?

There’s been a lot of buzz about buzz this year, especially as it impacts kids online. Also known as viral and word-of-mouth marketing, the strategy focuses on what Neil Minow refers to, in a recent piece in the Chicago Tribune, as “eliminating the middleman” by encouraging people to promote products and services directly to their peers. For marketers who’ve been in the buzz biz for years, word-of-mouth techniques have been an effective means of tapping into a satisfied customer base and generating free advertising from a trusted source. But all of that starts to sound hollow -- or highly suspect -- when the virus in question is transmitted by and among minors.

Youth marketers claim they’re tapping into a pool of outspoken enthusiasts who are invited to evaluate products and services, and share their opinions (positive or negative) with their pals. But if you’re an average fourteen year old who’s offered a first-look at a movie trailer, or a videogame, or a free makeup sample -- all of which are promoted as “the newest and coolest” -- where and when, exactly, is your rational, analytic mind going to kick in?

At the moment, this is more an ethical than a legal issue. (Although if lawmakers are paying attention, and I hope they are, that may change.) After all, some youth marketers are careful to tout parental consent as a precondition to recruiting kids. But adhering to the letter of the law and ensuring that business practices are ethical do not always add up to the same thing. It’s important for marketers to do more than abide by laws when it comes to kids. They should extend special protections against using minors in a business that demands mature decision-making.

But if kids agree to be co-opted for a little cash and a few trinkets, and if their parents sign on the dotted line, what’s all the fuss about? On the marketing side, it’s hard to believe business professionals really think they’re getting honest information from kids who are, for all intents and purposes, bribed into serving as their advocates. They’re buying minors’ opinions -- and cheaply at that -- so that they, in turn, recruit their own friends to be “product evangelists.” It’s a system based on the manipulation of those who are most vulnerable to being influenced.

As many of us remember only too well, when we’re very young we look for ways to define who we are and the means to make sure we’re “in the know” in a society run by adults. Youth marketers often exploit those vulnerabilities while sacrificing the integrity of kids’ opinions and friendships in the process.

And what of the parents? It’s likely that many of them don’t fully understand the implications of what they’re agreeing to, and aren't aware of the degree to which their children are being persuaded as opposed to simply polled. “My kids are opinionated,” they think, “so why not let them talk to marketers?”

Why not? Because not all of those marketers are really -- or only -- interested in those kids’ attitudes.

The problem isn’t market research, the above-board effort to mine data from respondents, young or old. The problem is that some marketers are keen on finding ways to give minors the right incentives -- free products, movie trailer premieres, a few bucks, and the like -- —to help them promote their clients’ wares. That cadre of marketers is using kids to do their own, very adult jobs. That’s exploitative, unethical and, to use Neil Minow’s term, just plain unconscionable.

Rhona Berenstein, Ph.D., is a consultant specializing in market research, and online marketing.