I try not to watch too much TV around the kids for a variety of reasons, so most of the time if the TV is on, it is something the kids are watching. During the NBA playoffs, it’s an exception and I’ll have one of the games on occasionally if I’m interested in it. My kids are starting to get in to watching basketball with me, but they also love the commercials.

What’s interesting is that the commercials with catchy music or a jingle really cement themselves in my kids. They do recognize a lot of commercials and many times I’ll ask them what each commercial is trying to sell so they can think about what they are watching. I also try to tell them that commercials are always showing so that they make sure people remember what they are selling. When the commercials are on, they react and say they have seen this one and that one…and these are commercials targeted at adults. I can only imagine what commercials are like that are targeted towards kids with the crazy colorful graphics and music. Commercials are already effective and I try to tell them they are trying to trick us into spending money when we don’t need to.

After a few days of watching NBA games, my 5 year old daughter was walking down the hallway singing the State Farm jingle…”like a good neighbor…State Farm is there…” She has no idea what State Farm is and what they are trying to sell, but she knows the jingle. It’s really surprising and again, if these commercials were targeted towards kids, they would definitely be effective at sticking in their brains (so the kids nag the parents for the toys, games, etc.). Makes me want to shield my kids even more from any of those kinds of commercials and as long as the jingles are for products my kids aren’t interested in, maybe it can be more of a learning for my kids on how to effectively structure and sell a product from a commercial.