Nursery World - Viewpoint - Beyond Disneyfication

I signed up to the campaign calling for an immediate end to all advertising aimed at young children not because I want to idealise childhood but because I worry that children's lives being imbued with products and brands has a negative impact on emotional and creative development, says Susie Orbach.

Children have brand awareness by the age of three which at first glance seems absolutely extraordinary. But of course brands are all around them, so much so that they don't recognise brands or consumerism as any kind of assault. It is just an integral part of their world. It prepares them to take their place in society by becoming consumers.

That the advertising industry turns techniques designed to manipulate adult emotions and desires on to children as young as two, is now impossible to avoid. Children grow up with television and screens as part of life from babyhood on. The TV is feeding children a constant diet of characters and goods which they can or need to acquire and consume. The question is how to give children alternative springboards to imaginative play so that their worlds are not just peopled by those the brands have dreamed up.

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