Lucy Power 

At a 1996 marketing conference called Kid Power, held at Disney World, the marketing director of McDonald’s said that children's minds must be "captured, owned, and branded", capturing the market's approach to obtaining child consumers.

A child's worth to marketers is not solely determined by the amount of pocket money they have or by their parents' disposable income. For marketers, the true value of a child consumer is in the ability to develop brand loyalty and future consumer habits, as a result children are marketed to more than any other age demographic.

The children’s consumer market boomed in the 1980's, when the US government deregulated children’s television, removing advertising restrictions and giving corporations free reign over children’s TV, allowing TV shows and toys to form a marketing alliance like never seen before.
The birth of ‘As seen on TV’ toys in the 1980’s bridged the gap between two of the most powerful marketing forces in children's lives, toys and TV, creating a new market precedent, where every toy had a TV show, and vice versa.

Since then, corporations have been leveraging children's emotional attachment to on-screen characters into money with toys and merchandise, through cartoons, celebrities, and influencers, transforming children's entertainment into a hyper commercial arena.

Since the 1980’s marketers have had the ability to shape people's self image, spending habits, and worldview, from early childhood, indoctrinating children into consumers.