Children's Programs

SpongeBob vs. Arthur: Television Show Products

Watching television has become an extremely prevalent activity. It seems like selling objects that are related to popular television shows has become a large trend. It also appears as though doing so wasn't as popular about 15 years ago. To help illustrate this point, two television shows and the products that are branded along with them are listed below.

SpongeBob SquarePants                                                           

• bedding                                           
• clothing
• books
• video games
• wallpaper borders
• clocks
• light switch covers
• pinatas
• keyboard stickers
• gummy candies
• backpacks
• lunch boxes
• CD-Rom computer games
• birthday candles
• sponges
• bathing suits
• towels

Arthur 

• CD-Rom computer games
• books
• dolls

As these lists show, there is a huge difference in the amount of products that are/were branded by these programs. Over the summer, viewers were able to watch new episodes of SpongeBob on Nickelodeon. I watched Arthur on PBS when I was about 5 or 6 years old. Both shows are branded by two of the same kinds of products: CD-Roms and books. It is clear that the types of products made that relate to children's shows has increased steadily. 

All of this branding relates back to spectacular consumption. Matthew P. McAllister wrote an article entitled "'Girls With A Passion For Fashion': The Bratz Brand as integrated spectacular consumption." On page 246, he wrote, "Watts and Orbe's application of Debord to popular advertising campaigns is also valuable for understanding coordinated merchandising and licensing campaigns which aggressively use a combination of media to disseminate large-scale and strategically integrated selling messages, hence the term 'integrated spectacular consumption'." Children see ads for the products listed above whenever they watch a television program. They could see the same commercial with a certain piece of merchandise being advertised multiple times throughout the half an hour or hour long program they watch. If they watch television longer than that, they could see many of the same commercials several times. When you're constantly exposed to a certain ad or message, it's hard to forget it. Also, when kids see that their friends or peers own a certain commodity, there is a chance that they're going to want it, too. In this sense, companies have an indirect way of exposing their consumers to their products. 

McAllister also claimed that "...spectacular consumption is intensely ideological, elevating the commercial and the promotional as authentic popular culture, which bleeds a consumption message over to less commercially oriented content forms" (page 246). On that same page, he also stated "...Goldman argues that advertising applies symbols of feminism in its products to women, and often implies that commodities can provide feminist achievement: purchasing products will empower women." In other words, corporations are trying to convince children that consuming is the cool and right thing to do. Programs and companies try to appeal to customers from the time they start watching a certain television show up until the consumer is no longer interested in the show or products. This could be until the child is either in his/her early or late teens. Companies are clearly very powerful and extremely influential.