A Six-Year-Old’s View of Advertising
So I’m playing a board game with my son Henry this morning while we listen to the radio. For some reason the college stations weren’t coming in so I settled for commercial radio. After 15 minutes of radio bliss, the inevitable run of commercials starts. I manage to sit through the first 4 commercials. By the fifth, my skin starts to crawl. I have to change the channel or turn it off. I can’t find the remote. I get up to turn it off. Henry looks up and demands “Where are you going daddy? It’s your turn!” “Sorry, I have to turn off the radio”. “But daddy, don’t turn if off. If you turn it off you won’t know what stuff to buy!”
No joke. My own son, smitten by broadcast advertising. Maybe the 6 year old set is the last demographic susceptible to broadcast ads. In another 2 months, when he turns 7, he’ll be just as good at tuning it out and turning it off as the rest of us. Or so I hope.
Funny how kids can expose the truth or flaws in things. Whenever I am about to release a new product online or mobile, I always give it to my son to play with beforehand. He has exposed all sorts of usability issues that somehow had made it past the qa and software folks. He’s even (without my urging, I swear) become cynical about Microsoft.