Why Kids Rule The World

Because they drive purchasing behavior.

I needed paint for our kitchen (the cabinets we were looking at are just too expensive for our budget right now) and my children walked down the paint aisle with me.

Suddenly, they were carrying around paint swatches with cartoon characters on them.

"Daddy, look. I want to paint my room Blue's Clues Blue."

Man, Lowe's, give me a break, I just painted their rooms last year.

The color swatches my children were carrying around had some of their favorite cartoon characters on them, and they were more than happy to recommend that I continue my weekend project of repainting our kitchen, all the way up to their room.

The kicker - especially if you have read some of my other posts - the characters are from Noggin.

Keep in mind, we keep our children pretty isolated from commercial television and they still can't hide from the Branding monster.

Just look around - kids influence food, entertainment and now, home improvement purchasing decisions.

Keep them in mind as you build your marketing strategies because their buying power is growing.