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How my topic came to be:
When I first started this blog, I had a completely different approach in mind for how to educate children about sustainability in the aspects of circularity, upcycling, and learning to make prudent decisions in our consumerism behavior. First and foremost, I would like to point out that such issues should be addressed earlier in education. Should we, for example, be taught in primary school about the history of our favorite chocolate packaging? Or what ingredients are in it? Or, more specifically, where did the raw materials come from? I hope my point is visible where I’m trying to indicate, but my problem is determining the best platform for educating or finding the spot to integrate such vital matters (sustainability influenced consuming habits) into easy topics that influences children via simple media such as cartoons, tv advertisements, music commercials.

Initially, I believed that the education system needed to update and do a better job of implementing new approaches. And I admit it is a concept that appears to be challenging to tackle. However, after researching how and when children become consumers, I discovered that many companies in the entertainment and social media markets target children to gain long-term loyalty. Being mindful of this very fact, I want to present my re-designing systems for schools with entertainment and media support.

Introduction

Are design managers about to crack the code on how to solve global warming? Not yet, but there is a place to start: the children’s entertainment industry is the perfect occasion to commence a vast project’s initial steps. Social media and Netflix TV shows have a more significant influence on the current generation than any formal curriculum of primary school. Although it may appear that children have no idea what they want, but they (around the age of two years) begin to develop preferences such as likes/dislikes, positive and negative reasonings, and other decision influencing feelings. Furthermore, they can begin to identify what they want to eat, wear, watch, or play at that age. As proved through existing literature such as scientific research, articles, and even the statements of a noble public figure, children are future generations, and it is essential to receive a good education.

Ideally, no company would market unnecessary items to children. Since it is not an ideal state, design management can potentially influence the next generation to make more prudent decisions. Furthermore, understanding children’s marketing formula is critical because if companies can have a long-term influence on children, why should not new eco-friendly chocolate or a show implement an affirmative message? The show must not be focusing solely on the environment. However, the show’s characters should assume a green lifestyle and demonstrate how it is possible to make prudent decisions while remaining „cool“.

Why does the entertainment business prioritize children?

The entertainment industry is a sweet spot ready to be exploited by business entities. Therefore the executives employed in entertainment services understand that today’s children have easy access to money for satisfying their needs. Those executives in entertainment enterprises regard the children as a prospective customer segment. In other words, children transcended into a vital target group over time that will yield them returns in the future.

This shift began in the 1970s and 1980s when families‘ socioeconomic status started gradually improving. Henceforth, the children started conveniently placing their opinion in regular household purchases like snacks, sweets, and everyday meals. When they further grow into adulthood, they start sufficing their personal preferences into their parents‘ decisions about the restaurant to dine in, the destination of vacation, the choice of car’s model to purchase, and the show the family watch together.

The influence of children’s choices begins when they are born as they are the ones that the parents want to satisfy by watching the cartoons they want or playing cheesy children’s music while driving to make the child stop crying. Therefore, companies want to rope children’s attention in because they keep the business in a flowing state and give rise to the quotient of loyalty at a very tender age.

Questions like „What is your favorite candy?, how long have you been eating this candy?“. When reminiscing with a friend about old times, one can recall the shows they watched and the juice they drank. It is mind-boggling to consider the impact of such superficial items that can influence people’s consumption behavior. Especially now, it is seamless to influence these marketing companies‘ buying behavior with tempting marketing strategies. Marketing activities such as music videos where the singer is holding a specific brand of headphone or toy, this is where the singer is involved in promoting the headphone or toy brand and children would incline to purchase that pair of headphone or toy.

Simply over YouTube, the child sees an advertisement for Coca-Cola while a video streams. He/she will push the parents to buy one for the kids. The lesson out of mentioned examples: if the combination of entertainment and advertising can influence a child’s choice, the design managers engaged in social design projects can utilize this opportunity and use the entertainment media to teach concepts like sustainability and circularity.

Design Managers as the hero?

If Lucerne School of Art and Design can educate their students about sustainability and around systemic design. Design Management graduates can disseminate the knowledge to companies to design greener solutions for the economy’s well-bound growth. Indeed, the Design Management curriculum has a holistic intention of teaching the future generation of design managers about eco-friendly and reduced carbon footprints initiatives. Of course, it is not just about recycling paper, glass, metal, and various material, which tolls the environment’s high cost. It is about changing minds and working to improve the world through creative thinking and devising strategies, and, most importantly, learning to ask striking-at-right-point questions. As a result, design managers possess the necessary knowledge and intellect to develop and communicating holistic design solutions for society’s goodness.

Suppose the schools begin teaching children in a child-friendly manner what Lucerne School of Art and Design teaches to Design Management students yet in a child friendly (via fun and in a simple language). In that case, children will become intelligent consumers. As a product, such a generation of children will be different from the ones in the past.

Consequently, the entertainment industry should also change what they present to children in the entertainment industry. Today’s top cartoons–are all about adventures, such as Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Peppa Pig, Shimmer and Shine, Beat Bugs, et cetera. So if the storyline can be tweaked to demonstrate kids about crafting things with natural material, they could learn something rather beneficial and productive.

When educational content intertwines with cartoons, it can cause curiosity in children. Children between the ages of 2 to 5 cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, yet they can focus their attention on animals and fictional characters. With this insight, a cartoon series can have content that combines fictional characters with real-life scenarios as its storyline. For instance, in the cartoon series: Dora the Explorer–Dora asks the audience questions and makes them think about which path to take between the two. This way, the child intuitively learns the basic procedural steps of T-shirt production.

To conclude, design managers are taught how to communicate with companies coherently, offer ideas, study the prevailing design challenges and conceptualize solutions for those challenges followingly. Design Managers can venture into any field of work by rendering these skills and a new perspective in the social projects related to children’s development and advise upon the shift in changing scenarios for the next generation. As a result, children will have plentiful access to knowledgeful entertainment media and grow into better human beings.

By: Zirzareth Molina

 

Sources:

Cherry, Kendra. “What Is Self-Awareness?” Verywell Mind, Verywellmind, 17 Jan. 2014, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-awareness-2795023.

“State School System.” SWI Swissinfo.ch, 19 Feb. 2019, www.swissinfo.ch/eng/state-school-system/29286538. Accessed 9 Apr. 2021.

Valente, Danielle, and Oliver Stand. “Best Cartoons for Kids to Watch Now.” Time out New York Kids, 8 May 2020, www.timeout.com/new-york-kids/movies/best-cartoons-for-kids-to-watch-now.

Valkenburg, Patti M, and Joanne Cantor. “The Development of a Child into a Consumer.” ResearchGate, Elsevier, Jan. 2002, www.researchgate.net/publication/222553251_The_Development_of_a_Child_into_a_Consumer.

“Why Choose Us?” ISZN, www.iszn.ch/why-choose-us/#upcycling. Accessed 9 Apr. 2021.