Responsibility and ethics in family marketing
If you decide to focus on family marketing, you will soon have to take a very close look at ethical and moral values in your company. Children in particular perceive advertising unfiltered as reality and do not critically scrutinize the mostly embellished messages – which is why they are particularly worthy of protection, and not just by law.
As an active family player, you are under the scrutiny of parents and various institutions, which automatically exposes you to a certain degree of risk. The measures chosen therefore require a consistently delicate touch and uncompromising integrity.
It’s about taking responsibility – through action and not just nice words and funny pictures.
Responsible marketing for the target group of families includes in particular:
- the truth – i.e. no tricks, no false promises and/or half-truths
- Values that enrich our society as a whole (e.g. community, mutual support, etc.)
- Behavioral ideas that promote children’s potential in an age-appropriate manner and do not encourage unhealthy behavior (e.g. diet, alcohol, dangerous stunts, etc.)
Storck, one of our long-standing customers, is an example of successful family marketing under “special conditions”, as their products such as nimm2 are confectionery for children: a hotly debated topic in times of sugar-influenced eating habits and increasingly overweight masses of people!
But we also supplement the classic marketing mix for other brand partners such as Bruder Spielwaren, Mattel, Urlaub am Bauernhof etc. with themed tours and roadshows, where children come into contact with the brands in an age-appropriate way and are addressed at different levels.
Best practice: Our themed tours with big players
Our successful themed adventure tours for the target group of families with children therefore always include the following elements:
- Movement and skill (e.g. bouncy castle, obstacle course, etc.)
- Creativity (e.g. craft, painting and make-up stations)
- Knowledge transfer (quiz station, treasure hunt, puzzle rally, etc.)
- Stage show (moderated games for a shared group experience, awards for participants who have successfully completed all stations, etc.)
- Memories of the event (a give-away as a reminder of the experience and thus of the brand: e.g. a photo from a CD-compliant photo station)
For children and young people, an age-appropriate differentiation in the approach strategy is essential. To put it bluntly: a “Kinderwiener” on the menu alone does not make a restaurant child-friendly. And: the balance between children’s joy of experimentation and youthful “coolness” is a treacherous balancing act that requires creativity and imagination, especially in all communication channels.
Despite the challenges in family marketing, however, the key question is:
What do we lose and what creativity do we miss out on if we do NOT address the target groups of families with children and/or young people? We know about the long-term effect of positive (brand) experiences that, collected as a child, also have an impact on purchasing decisions and customer loyalty in adulthood. When it comes to employer branding, we are also increasingly discovering efforts to inform the potential employees of tomorrow about (“exotic”) professions from an early age and to promote correspondingly well-meaning associations with a company.
For many companies, focusing on customer and/or employee satisfaction and loyalty makes sense: the aim is to earn trust in order to build long-term relationships. This puts the focus on people and their needs.
What better way to express an appreciative attitude than to think about how the most important people in the family, big and small, feel well looked after?