A communication researcher in Australia is looking for more regulation of the growing practice of youngsters hawking toys as paid social media influencers.
“These are sometimes children of celebrities who develop lucrative partnerships with brands to maximise engagement and ‘selling power,’” Dr. Catherine Archer, of Edith Cowan University, said in an announcement Wednesday.
“Our study has highlighted key concerns regarding privacy issues, commodification, and gendered and ‘stealth’ marketing of toys to children through ‘advertorials.’”
In a latest paper published within the M/C Journal, Archer argues that the rise of social media has presented marketers with a solution to reach kids 24/7.
She noted the number of kids who own their very own tablets rose from lower than 1% in 2011 to 42% in 2017 — a trend that continues to grow.
“Where children’s television once reigned supreme as a vehicle for sales of youngsters’ brands, the marketing of kids’s toys now often hinges on having the appropriate social media influencer, lots of them children themselves,” Archer explained.
Many social media platforms, like TikTok and Instagram, require their users to be at the very least 13, but some kids younger than that discover a solution to post online.
Archer studied posts by 11-year-old Australian “kidfluencer” Pixie Curtis and her 8-year-old brother, Hunter Curtis. They’re managed by their mom, Roxy Jacenko, the previous director of PR firm Sweaty Betty.
The children boast 1000’s of followers on Instagram, with Pixie having her account before she was 2, and her brother’s coming even earlier, when he turned 1, in accordance with the paper.
Jacenko now runs an influencer talent company called Ministry of Talent. She told The Post on Wednesday that she knew nothing of the study.
Archer analyzed the youngsters’s posts from March to July 2022, noting different hashtags they used and toy brands they mentioned.
Two things stuck out: The “highly gendered promotion of toys” and a promotion of “high-end, aspirational” toys that could possibly be marketed to tweens, teens, and adults.
Archer reasoned that this sort of influencing for toys can confuse consumers, especially children.
“’Kidfluencers’ are blurring the lines between what we consider traditional toys with adult objects of desire,” she said.
“High-end adult products corresponding to make-up, cars and garments for ‘dressing-up’ are being promoted by stealth, alongside more traditional toys.”
Archer is looking for more regulation of “kidfluencing,” raising concerns in regards to the sexualization of young girl influencers on Instagram.
“Gendered marketing of toys and increased deal with appearance for women through Instagram may be harmful to children’s self-esteem, and there are concerns regarding the continued commodification of childhood,” Archer said.
“More research is required, and maybe place to start out can be to seek advice from children about their views on the content they eat — often commercially focused advertorials masquerading as cute content.”
In 2020, one other study found that child influencers on YouTube were “stealthily” promoting junk food to their audiences.
Analyzing 418 videos from the highest five YouTubers between the ages of three and 14, researchers determined that just below half featured some sort of food or drink product.
90% of those videos showed branded fast food items, like McDonald’s.
