The 'Pester Power' of Children

Children opinionate, decide, persuade, buy.

The advertising and marketing industry have been using this knowledge and targeting children as initiators and influencers for particular products and then developing an appropriate communication strategy targeted at these members to evoke the desired response.

‘Pester Power’ is a common tactic which young children practice which includes crying, nagging and whining which gets their parents to buy them things. As they grow older, pester power gets further refined into nudging, coaxing, arguing, reasoning and even emotional blackmail to achieve what they want. Furthermore as children involve themselves more with a product which appeals to them, they begin commanding an increased level of influence on family matters and decision making.

When it comes to product buying, I am intrigued with the level of brand smartness of our children exhibit and their evolved sense of decision making, brand values and their active viral circle of influence courtesy their peers and social media networking. Perhaps as a social communication experiment, it is worth it to know that, with children being the nucleus of a family, can they extend their influence to impact decisions and practices beyond products and materialism within their ecosystem. Is it possible to harness this remarkable pester power which they possess for behavioural change? Of their Parents. Of Adults. Of the Community. Can schools be the fulcrum to drive change with high quality facilitation and support?

Take for example road safety. Undoubtedly, parents and adults have proven to be extremely poor role models. Increasing road crashes are a testimony to how we conduct ourselves on road. We unabashedly flout rules, pay bribes, maim and kill people and become passive bystanders in case there is a mishap on road. Above all, we are leaving behind a poor road environment which our children will have to put up with and negotiate as they grow.  So our key question: Can children be influencers and take centre stage, firstly to become responsible road users themselves, and secondly, to nudge responsible road behaviour amongst the adults around them?

Through the CineArt Steer to Safety Program, we wanted to find out that with well designed road safety education will children be able to create media messaging which will change mind-sets and attitudes towards the way people engage with roads. We decided to test waters and see whether school students are able to apply their road safety learning to improve their road environment which they experience everyday. Will they be able to sensitize their parents and adults and show them the mirror?

Students of participating schools created their road safety projects which they would drive. Most students were concerned with safe travel to their school. Students created street plays, puppet shows, wall art and quizzes to attract the attention of adults. They took to the streets where their school is located. Bold and confident these road safety volunteers knew that they were on the right side of the law and enforced road rules, their pester power way. They pointed, nudged, sensitized, informed and pleaded. The results were dramatic. Parents were taken by surprise. Most were embarrassed and were quick to admit their fault. They were defensive. Some felt truly guilty. Many admitted they would never do it again. No excuse is justified when deep down you know what you are doing is careless and bad in law. And most parents did not know how to react when children stopped them on the road and earnestly requested them by saying that they loved them and that is the reason they should wear helmet, which is good for their safety and for well-being of their child with them. Small wonder cops indeed!

Through their road safety projects which were smart and snappy, students sensitized bus drivers and van drivers about their vulnerability on road and driver responsibility with school children. Students created attention grabbing artistic speed breakers, installed bilingual warning signage about Blind Curves, worked out solutions for school peak time traffic congestion, created innovative eco-friendly transportation projects and mobile apps aiding safe roads around them. They collaborated and advocated the through radio shows and public campaigns. Each of the 30 student driven projects contributed to the safer school travel with a new learnings, especially for adult road users.

What we also observed was that parents were largely, open and willing learners. In fact, they were proud that students were showing them the way. As our program grows in scale and purpose we are witnessing that the student community can be counted upon. They are the future citizen. Going forward, it is going to be their road environment. They are the ones who aspire for better living and smart cities. They need to engage with the road safety issue so that they can solution it as town planners, engineers, architects, designers , social scientists, administrators, managers and above all, as commuters and road users.

I believe, just like generating brand awareness for products, all principles of marketing practices can be used to enable road safety learnings to get internalized by students at an early age. This includes integrated road safety campaigns, message repetition, content sessions, creative arts and even incentives and prizes to attract their attention and encourage them to become responsible road users.  With this orientation, these young road safety champions will easily take on the role as change-makers for the larger society. After all, as John Whitehead said “children are the living messages for a time we will not see”. We need to prepare them with the right content so that they can weave their own story, for increasing the collective consciousness towards creating a positive road culture around them.