What exactly is the deal with businesspeople letting their young children have a starring role in local TV commercials? I’ve seen it in ads for nearly every type of business— auto dealerships, clothing stores, mattress retailers, plumbers, you name it.
Surely I can’t be the only one who finds some of these children to be rather annoying; besides the fact that many times they can’t enunciate worth anything or can only manage to read their few scripted lines in a rather stilted manner, they simply seem out of place in most ads. What business do kindergartners have selling cars or formal clothing? It’s not even as if the children want to be in the commercials; most of the time, they seem rather apathetic, and it seems to me that it’s solely because of the parents’ wish to showcase their children that they’re in the ad.
…Yeah, call me a curmudgeon, call me weird, but I’ve never really understood the phenomenon.
I haven’t seen any TV commericials featuring children, but I have heard radio commercials for a mortgage company from a 11 year old daughter. She sounds happy, but it’s forced. Who could be happy about mortgages?
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It’s because it’s cute, and cute sells, sometimes.
Furniture Kingdom features the kids, but the adults speak for them.
In print ads, of course, graphics people can put words in their mouths.
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