Writing for life

“That’s Mucdomulds…” said the little one, pointing enthusiastically at the shiny yellow M (“golden arches” sounds better, of course, but all the ones I’ve laid eyes on have most definitely been Ms, in a particularly lurid shade of yellow).

This particular yellow M was set into the lovingly restored  wall of an old mill building somewhere in the Midlands. The RTE programme “Nationwide” was lauding the regeneration of yet another town centre: an admirable feat, certainly – but there, looming large on the façade of the old mill building (now a shopping centre and market) was the yellow M.
 
I was taken aback. Not by seeing it of course – that yellow M has become an almost ubiquitous symbol in today’s high octane, consumer driven society. No, what shocked me was the fact that my three-year-old recognised the brand so readily. She’s been into a fast food “restaurant” (and I use the term in its loosest possible form) three, maybe four times since she was born. How did she know about the yellow M?

It was a shocking reminder of the power of branding – and the influence the big multinationals are exerting, not just on adults, but, worryingly, on children… even the little ones. One thing’s for sure, when it comes to the branding war the multinationals are winning.

We have Tesco Club Cards and Dunnes Stores Value Club cards – a throwback to our days of city living and being able to choose where to shop. Inevitably we get the regular branded mail-shots from both companies.

The twins collect the post every day. It’s become one of their “jobs”. When one mailer arrives they run up shouting: “Dad you’ve got a letter from Tesco.” ; when the other arrives they simply hand over the envelope and ask what it is. We don’t shop in either of the supermarkets concerned regularly any more – but when we do we’d use Dunnes more than Tesco because there’s one relatively nearby. And yet the twins recognise the multinational brand ahead of the Irish one.

The power of branding never ceases to surprise me. There’s something about the right choice of colours and symbols in a logo, the memorable wordplay of an effective tag-line, that seems to short-circuit the rational part of the brain. Brands are hard-coded into our psyche. Much of our brand awareness – and therefore our consumer choice – is influenced on a completely subconscious level. Unless we actively stop to think about it (and how many of us have time to do that?) we have very little to do with the process at all.

That’s all very well for adults – its up to us to make ourselves aware of the power of branding and the impact it can have on the decisions we make. If we choose not to, or decide we don’t care, that’s fine. But for children it’s different.
Children – the young ones at least – absorb the world around them without questioning it. It’s sort of like learning by osmosis, and it’s incredibly effective – but it’s that sort of subliminal absorption of knowledge that big brands thrive on. Of course the big multinationals claim they’re not targeting children.
 
For some that may be true, for others it patently isn’t, but regardless of whether they specifically target children or not, the results are self evident. What the big brands are actually doing is grooming the consumers of tomorrow to subconsciously express a preference for their particular products and services. I don’t know about you… but on a very basic level I think that kind of manipulation is just plain wrong.

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