IndexChildren's consumer cultureMedia as a catalystCommercialMarketing strategiesConclusionToys have long roots in popular cultures and local craftsmanship, and regional and national traditions of toy production and dolls have long strengthened ethnic and local identities in children. But the construction of modern childhood over the last century has gone hand in hand with the decline of these craft traditions and the emergence of a global commercial children's culture. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay This article seeks to examine the dynamics of the children's toy industry, especially in the context of globalization and its interconnections with media and other sectors such as fashion, food and textiles. It focuses on the factors that function as catalysts for this matrix to function homogeneously throughout the world. Children's Consumer Culture Children are the least sophisticated of all customers, they have less, therefore they want more. (McNeal, 1992, cited in Linn,2004). They are considered the most emotionally vulnerable consumer population (Schor,2004,p.65). The nature and experience of childhood, as a childhood of continuous and unfolding identity formation, through ongoing welcome and desire for welcome, suggests that we might see children's basic identity as that of a consumer. In this way consumption is intertwined with the formation of identity. The question arises: whose voice do they respond to in constructing their consumer identity. Steven K. Khan in his article, Harnessing the Complexity of Children's Consumer Culture writes: Children's consumer culture is more than what children buy or what is purchased on their behalf. It's what they assimilate. It's what they come to want. It is the identity that is constructed for and by them. This type of brand involvement has become inevitable for both parents and children. According to Hall (1992, cited in Giroux, 2000), everyone now inhibits the popular, whether they like it or not. Marketing to children seeks to create brand loyalty from cradle to grave (Linn, 2004). This is what makes Ronald McDonald one of the most recognizable fictional characters, second only to Santa Claus. According to one estimate (Langer 2004), children's global contribution to corporate profit through the purchase of food, drinks, licensed clothing, sneakers, sports equipment. , computers, movies and theme parks are currently estimated at over $450 billion. The toy industry worldwide is highly fragmented. The current size of the toy market can be estimated to be around Rs 4.5 billion. The biggest problem in estimating the size of industries is the presence of a large number of very small operators. Furthermore, no excise duties are imposed so production data is not available either. Four very large players have global operations: Mattel, Lego, Hasbro and Bandai. Mattel Toys is the largest toy manufacturer in the world. Bandai of Japan and Mattel have a worldwide strategic alliance to market each other's products. Mattel has been present in India since 1985. The company sells toys under the brand names Barbie, Hot Wheels, Star Beans etc. Mattel Company is a $6 billion company, of which the market share in India is around 20%. Lego controls up to 20% of the domestic market; another player is Leo Toys, which is widely credited with pioneering the organized toy market in India. Funskool Toys is the third largest manufacturer oftoys. All three big players have ties to Indian multinationals, with a collective market share of around 16% of the entire toy industry. Apart from these, there are many other players such as Chirantan Enterprise, Plastech International Pvt.Ltd., Aries Inc. and many others who operate the toy market in India. Media as a catalyst. Children begin to learn about consumer culture from the moment they are wrapped in their blanket covered in licensed cartoon characters. it is a culture they continue to consume as they traverse the pedagogical spaces of home, school, playground, and shopping mall into adult life (Steven K. Khan, Harnessing the complex of children consumer culture). As cultural identities merge, traditions fade, and hostility increases, companies, driven by desire, seek untapped markets. Media consolidation that sees four companies, Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner and Fox, control most of what kids consume and most of what they consume. children consume because popular culture is perceived as limiting the potential diversity of viewpoints to which children are exposed. These oligopolies exist not only in the media, but also in the food, fashion, and toy culture industries that sell to children. Children's consumption is intimately linked to the formation of their identity (Giroux, 2000, Martens et al., 2004). Cook suggests that some marketing strategies in children's popular culture encourage a form of education, a way of being, that is incompatible with notions of sacred and innocent children, but is highly compatible with aggressive and competitive capitalism. It's time to realize that the real tutors of our children are not school teachers or college professors but filmmakers, advertising executives and purveyors of pop culture... MTV beats MIT. (Barber, 1996, p.12, cited in Reynolds 2004, p.25). Commenting on the influence of television on Indian consumer behavior, Unnikrishanan and Bajpai (1996) wrote: Consumerism is the new religion of the day and its most devoted followers are children. This does not mean that the adult world is above the dictates of this new ethic. The difference is that the vision of the good life that is instilled in the minds of viewers by television advertising is, in a sense, better internalized by children than by the older generation. He Man was a significant milestone in the evolution of children's television because it represented an innovative type of cost-sharing cooperation between toy and manufacturer, the advertising industry, and the emerging cable networks. It more clearly defined the dominant tendency to link children's entertainment to market forces and to commercialize the notion of children's developmental needs. The major changes that occurred in the entertainment industry in the United States in the 1980s spawned another innovation that had a huge impact on the globalization of the world. television in the coming years: the emergence of channels dedicated to children such as Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and Time Warner Cartoon Network. The Disney Channel isn't a huge source of revenue for the company, but its importance to the company brand is enormous, with characters developed first as media stars, then as age-specific toy sales (through its partnership with Mattel) and icons licensed for use. on everything from baby diapers to candy bars, restaurant chains, theme parks and hotel resorts. In a globalized world, researchers theorize that the opening of regional and local markets to international business has increased consumerism and created aappetite for American products in many developing countries. Fundamental to this process is the spread of television and the general spread of Western mass media programming. Schiller (1991) states that the goal of Western media is the creation of good consumers. Exposure to Western media, including advertising, has increased consumerism and created the desire to own advertised goods. The phenomenon of dark-haired girls in East Asia choosing blond-haired Barbie dolls may suggest the considerable marketing power wielded by Mattel. It can also be called a reflection of US cultural imperialism, with girls in Asia or Africa concluding that European blonde hair is more attractive or even superior to their own dark hair. Recently, on the occasion of Barbie's 50th anniversary, Mattel's Lauren Dougherty said "Barbie is a reflection of fashion, pop culture and aspiration, and that's how we celebrated her 50th birthday." Critics of globalization have often denounced the spread of a global child culture based on a standardized set of practices and values ​​promoted by large multinational companies. In this interpretation, young people around the world have been transformed into global consumers, induced to demand the same goods, play with the same toys and feed their imaginations with the same themes and symbols. To quote Canadian journalist Naomi Klein's No Logo: Branded multinationals may talk about diversity, but the visible result of their actions is an army of teenage clones marching in uniform, as marketers say in the global mall. Despite the embrace of polyethnic imagery, market-driven globalization does not want quite the opposite - the enemies are national habits, local brands and distinctive regional tastes. It could be said that the advertising of international brands and products aimed at children and adolescents is the most eloquent expression of commercial universalism. In the era of globalization, it is argued, not only does advertising flatten child culture into the cult of commodities and extravagance, but it is also one of the main causes of the erosion of national and local traditions. Well. Images of different nature (film, animation or synthesis) alternate or merge in the same frame, so that real children, toys and cartoon characters appear on the screen, moving in a domain where the real and imaginary worlds intersect. they intertwine. In the My Pretty Barbie commercials, for example, animated characters, dolls and girls interacted in an environment where real snow in the foreground combined with painted fir trees, mountains and hills in the background. Similarly, Hot Wheels model cars sometimes appeared to be racing on the Turbo Jet City toy track and then in the virtual space of a video game. In other cases, the realism of the representation was altered by the use of special effects to emphasize certain properties of the toys. The fusion of film, animated sequences and digital images, as well as the use of visual devices and sound effects, helped transform the toy into a key that allowed entry into a dream world. Toy advertising aims to reproduce the mechanisms of typical children's play. The commercials described toys as tools capable of activating the imagination, toys could give access to extraordinary (imaginary) experiences. The environment in which the game took place (often a child's bedroom) was anonymous and the child's presence was marginal. The child who played with the toy was often relegated to.