Is "Copywriting" Unethical When Used on Kids?

Technically, the idea feels a little off to me. I'm not saying that I disapprove exactly, but it's not something that I would like to do.

Beyblades are huge at the moment and I suppose there's a lot of money to be made from them but it depends on who's actually going on the internet looking for them. Is it the parents looking for stuff to buy their kids or is it the kids themselves? How old is your son for instance?

The question is: would you mind your son being marketed to like that? Do you think parents would have a problem with a website telling their kids directly to get their patents to go and buy something?

At least with adults, you know that they should be able to make a calculated decision upon reading your copy. I would feel more comfortable marketing to the parents as oppose to the kids themselves. But then again, I'm far from being a ruthless marketer. I'm sure the parents won't be impressed by the sales tactics towards their kids.

It also depends on who's on the websites looking at the Beyblades. A little keyword research for the types of terms being searched for may give you some indication as to those that are searching. For example, parents may be looking more for "Where to buy Beyblades" or "cheap Beyblades" etc. whereas a kid's search would be much different - maybe types of Beyblades and stats etc.

There may be enough of a market of parents looking to buy Beyblades for you to put together a successful site and you can still create your site and still feel comfortable with what you are doing.

Parents unappreciative?

You mean, they would not like the fact that
I told their kids to "ask your parents to buy
this before their sold out"

Trying to think of how I might word things better??

If parents are unappreciative of any business selling to their kids and don't want their children to be exposed to such messages, then their is a few actions they can take.

Such as, never let your kids watch TV commercials, never take your kids to toy stores, never take your kids through the checkout line where there are attractive cheap toys and kids candy at their eye level, etc.

The amount of advertisements on TV alone that say, "Tell your mom to buy this" or "tell your dad to get you this" are copius, and it happens all the time.

I see nothing wrong with what you're doing, as it's done all the time by thousands and thousands of advertisers, every single day.

Yes, this is a good point, but keep in mind that if you want the parents to buy the product, having the kids annoy them until they get it, is a good thing.

I think the responses to this will be interesting.

In general I would say that that telling kids to ask their parents to get a Visa card is going a little into "aggressive" marketing.

I'm in the UK and here, in marketing to kids, you're not allowed to say go and get your parents to buy...x... for you. All you're allowed to do is promote the product and generally say how cool it is so that they kids bug their parents to buy it for them.

There's a different between this and telling kids to ask their parents to buy them something and then telling them how they can pay for it also.

But, there's also another question here - and it's not about ethics. It's actually about how you're going to make sales.

It's coming up to Christmas. Or let's say it's coming up to a kid's birthday. Kids usually know what they want straight away and they're probably already and they've told their parents what. It's then up to the parents to go and look online to find the best deals for what their kids wants. Parents generally want to please their kids.

If you're going through affiliate marketing directly to the product, it's easy for a parent looking for the best deals etc to head online see what you're got to say and then purchase the product through an affiliate link.

Parent browsing for product reviews > purchases product through affiliate link> Sale.

You've already got yourself as a middle man between the product and the customer when targeting the parent - so you've got a conversion for the parent to your link and another conversion from the link to buy the product.
If you're targeting affiliates offers to kids, you're then factoring a whole new wall between the actual product > affiliate (you) > kids > parent's bad mood :-) etc.> buyer.

If you're target market can't pay for anything themselves you've got to rely on the "conversion rate" of the kids. Not that kids aren't good sales people - they're usually good at getting what they want. But is it through your affiliate link.

It's worth giving it a go and also changing your sales copy to see what works best for you.

If you don't want to be too pushy, you can be respectful to the parents and the kids:

- Click here (aff link) and then ask a parent nicely if they will order for you

- Click here (aff link) and then let your parents know so they know what you want for your birthday/this Christmas

- Show your parents this page (aff link) so that they know exactly what to tell Santa you want this Christmas

- Don't rely on your parents knowing what you want, show them this page (aff link) so they know exactly what to buy.

- Tell your parents that there's a limited special offer for this product here (aff link) so that they can save money.

etc.

These are much more ethical approaches where the kids make the click based on the sales copy and the parents make their purchase themselves. But I suppose it's the parents that make the decision to purchase - they're grown adults and they don't have to buy if they don't want to.

Just as a PS - there's a website in the UK called thepresentclub.co.uk . It manages to make decent sales and it's a website for kids to get their parents to buy stuff for them. The idea is that the kids make a wishlist and then their parents or relatives put money into the online "piggy bank" until they have enough to reach the targeted amount and then the product is delivered. It's aimed directly at kids and kids use the site themselves. There's not really any "sales copy" because you don't really need to sell it to the kids - they know what they want - your challenge is to get the parents to pay for it.

Hope this helps a little. Great question by the way!