researchers have found that children directly impact more than $286 billion of family purchases annually.4 Marketers have more than taken note, increasing their spending on advertising to children from $100 million in 1983 to more than $16 billion a year now. And it’s working. The average ten-year-old has memorized three hundred to four hundred brands, and research has shown that by the age of two, kids can recognize a specific brand on the store shelves and let you know—with words or the ever-effective point-and-scream—that they want it.5
