Kids’ Buying Clout Is Growing Fast

So much for the Age of Innocence.

America’s children are a rapacious bunch. Everywhere on the cultural landscape, they are gobbling up the newest, the coolest, the highest-tech. And they’re armed with more than $20.3 billion annually, a figure that’s growing at a rate of 15% to 20% a year.

Two decades ago, the only things people were trying to sell kids were sweets and toys. Now the small set is putting in its two cents’ worth on decisions about groceries, computers, vacations, even the family car.

Thanks to a baby boomer belief in self-expression, “there’s an emphasis on children having a say,” market researcher Selina Guber said on Tuesday.

Marketing experts said preteens and teens are getting in on more purchasing decisions because working parents have encouraged them to take a greater role in family decisions in general.

The marketing gurus have learned almost as quickly as the children, and they’re responding. Even products a child could never afford, like computers, are marketed with their clout in mind.

“Kids start having a influence as early as 4, but really seriously by 6 in terms of the purchase of products for themselves,” said Ellen Sackoff of the Discovery Group, a New York marketing firm.

Girls in all socioeconomic strata, for example, start influencing the purchase of grooming products by age 7 or so, some as early as 4, while boys begin getting interested at about age 10, Sackoff said.

Manufacturers are taking advantage of this by gearing more and more products to them, from shampoos and cosmetics to kid-sized candy-colored tape players and even electronic diaries.