Monday, February 18, 2008

Starbucks is reaching out to the kids!

I completely forgot to post this and it has been sitting on my computer but I still thought that it would be a good thing to bring up to the class. All throughout January The Starbucks next to Barnes and Nobel had a children’s story time at 6:00 on Sundays. I thought this was so interesting because usually Starbucks is marketed to the “business person” who is in a hurry for work, or even college students since they have areas for us to study there. Now it seems as if they are trying to reach out to all ages by having a children’s story time. I’m not quite sure if this is still going on. If anyone happens to stop by there let me know. I just thought this was an interesting piece of information since we were looking at what is being marketed to children through out discussion of the Bookstore vs. the Library.

4 comments:

KellyH said...

I also find it interesting that Starbucks is reaching out to kids, but are they really after the parents? I think that their main reason for targeting kids is so their parents will bring them and most likely spend money. I also believe they have this 'children time' so that parents will come and do their work while their child is being entertained. If a parent who usually wouldn't do work at Starbucks enjoys their time there then they'll most likely return more often even without their child. Overall I think this was a good marketing tool for Starbucks!

Valerie W. said...

Our conversations in class and now this blog post keep reminding me of the Hade (2002) and Kohn (1995) readings that are currently assigned for session 13. Maybe we should move them up? (People are certainly welcome to read ahead!)

I'm particularly interested in hearing from our advertising majors! Do you discuss the ethics or implications of marketing reading to children (or their parents)? Do you think this is just a hook to encourage sales? What about the possible unintended consequences?

Maybe some groups would be interested in reading "Feed" or "So Yesterday" for their group choice? (I'll bring them in soon.)

Kelseyb said...

I really think that this is interesting what starbucks is doing because i just got done reading an article talking about how using children's literature to teach about history can be a very beneficial thing for teachers to do. It puts fictions and factious stories into a time line perspective for students helping them realize when certain events happened in history compared to others. I wonder if starbucks has caught onto this trend? Ultimately though, i agree with Kelly because if you get the children to come, the parents must follow an most likely they'll be spending money at the end of the day.

Valerie W. said...

Kelsey, I missed the link between the article you read and what Starbucks is doing. Will you say more?