Design Issues

Zach kaitZ

Although a difficult market to sell to, teens are the newest, and most desirable untapped group of consumers. They are hard to satisfy with toys and so money on video games, the mall and the movies are being giving to Tweens to keep them from growing up. The Tween idols are less than 18 but are oozing sexuality onto 6th graders. I can’t walk into a mall without seeing 12 year olds with earrings and cell phones all dolled up, while boys are finding out ways to be good at something enough to not be an outcast. No matter the sex, it’s a focus on who has the right materials (clothes, look, electronic device, video game, etc). Besides girls and boys being affected by idols, marketers research the tween world as an anthropological study. Figuring out how they talk, interact and what they think is “cool.”
Buying what is cool or more importantly “in” is what tweens use to figure out what to consume. The kids or tweens who can afford the ipod are now cool.
The fact that “everyone will shine” will keep people coming back to the game who were the “losers” is great for all ages but the classics are called classics for a reason- people keep buying them because they are still fun. Cranium is just as fun and having games for kids where nobody ever really loses is a fantastic idea. I can’t tell you how many times my little brother quit a game because I was dominating. I figured out that if he was going to keep playing I was going to have to play softer and maybe even let him win. So while I agree with the creators of Cranium that giving everyone the chance to shine and making the game more about the fun involved than winning is a step up from cut throat Monopoly or Risk. But sometimes people want to dominate and have defined losers-maybe its animal instinct?
 

Megumi Hattori

The commercialization of childhood is one of the most important for marketers to sell to kids the adulthood experiences. Kids are interested in 'cooler' stuff that used to be popular for adult. The development of electronic materials such as Computers, ipods, cellphones and a lots of newest things catch tweens attention because tweens want to feel maturity. They want to be cooler than others of same age by having adulthood materials. Although tweens want to have cool things, the things still have to be popular in general (or between their friends.) I didn't want to have cellphone when I was kid, even my dad used it, however once some of my friend started having it, suddenly I want to get same thing, or much more cooler one.

Richard Tait and Whit Alexander's approach was success to share the fun both children and families. The idea `everyone has chance to shine` create the game Cranium that brought benefit and fun for everyone rather than competing each other. This new idea is really effective to learn and share the fun and cooperation while classic games such as Monopoly or Scrabble offer compete and make winner and loser. When I played the game with my friends, especially the game which decide obvious `winner` and `looser`, I felt so bad and depress when I lose again and again. Although people still like to compete and decide winner and looser, sometimes those kind of games make player unsatisfied. So the Cranium concept is safe idea that bring chance to 'shine' (not to 'win') for everyone while other type of games take some risks. I think we like to play both kind of games to share the fun and compete each other to satisfy our mind.
 

Diane Lee

Children between the ages of 0 to 14 are the newest source of untapped goods for the world of commercialization. Although they have always been apart of the target market in the commercialization industr only recently did their influence become a target not only in the area of child market but adult market too. The idea that children are now choosing electronics over board games and designer styles over generic styles have commited the marketing world to nodd in unison when asked if children have a hold over their parent's wallet.
All of this is due to the fact that children usually want what their peers own. Fitting in and finding that perfect way to feel comfortable in a group is thier most important thing to them. What is important to them is also important to their parents.

I really love the classic games of Monopoly, Sorry, Connect Four, and so many more. They bring the memories of my childhood back. In some ways when you play these games you feel like a kid again. That is why nothing beats the classic games that you grew up playing with. Although there are constantly new games comming out all the time. Cranium is one of the newest games out and I for one have played it. It's kind of like alot of the games that i've played before all put together in one. I think that's why it's such a hit in my family. These games create the neutral space in which everyone can come together a spend quality time together. Games are great because everyone who has nothing in common can find common ground to learn more about eachother.
 

Kelli Dochstader

I agree with the sentiment that tweens are a very valuable source of consumers, and I feel that there should be some market, that specifically targets them as their main audiance, While many may disagree with my views, I base them on the premise that marketing and advertising is not going to go away... if anything, the ways in which advertising occurs will become more acute. So if products are going to be marketed in an environment when tweens may be left to view them on their own, they should atleast be appropriate products for the age group. After all, this is an age group where many of its members are left alone at home for several hours after school until their parents come home.

I also feel that tweens need their own marketing group because they are in that awkward group that does not fit into the labels of "child" or "teen". In the past, many tweens that were in this category were labeled "pre-teen", which is a much less appealing term. But as a marketing demographic tweens have a tendency to follow trends, and often those who are able to, beg their parents or get jobs like a paper route or baby sitting, in order to get teh products they want. This a time in a persons life when they most want to fit in and be like everyone else... the process from changing from a child to a teen is undoubtedly an awkward one.


As a person who spent much of her childhood playing board games, and other various types of games, I can easily say my satisfaction came from winning. If I lost, I wanted to play again, and would do so until I either gave up or won. While I did enjoy the process of playing the game, the satisfaction only came if I was not the loser. In a multiple person game, as long as I was not last, I was okay with it.
The thing is, I'm still that way today... playing cards with my friends, competing in horse shows, even grades... I know that "its okay as long as you did your best," and that should be enough. But honestly, and I dont think I'm alone on this, I still always want to come out on top. Especially whenI know I could have done better.
 

Kids today have become the most impressionable source of consumer that exists. From the ages of 3-15 a child/ tween are at there most vulnerable state in there life in figuring out who they want to be. This age is before the teen who starts making their own decisions in their interests and start breaking away from what everyone else around them is doing. A younger child either has to see a commercial or see what there best friend has and they automatically want the new craze toy or game. I know a family of boys ages 3-11 who all just got the new PS2 hand held game. When I was at that age I was happy playing with candy land, and shoots and ladders! At the same time all my dolls I had were because I saw this really great commercial for them or one of my friends had the same thing. There has been advances in technology and of course the children are going to be subjected to the same type of marketing strategies. Every single person in this world wether they range from an 8 year old child just learning how to read well wanting a PS2 or a full grown adult wanting a new ipod, digital camera etc...Everyone is being marketed, children or tweens are at the most impressionable time in their lives and are more easily able to sell certain items to.
The ideas coming from Tait and Alexander's were in creating a game where everyone has a chance to succeeded at something. The game Cranium I think might be the worst game I've ever played. I know im one of the few who hate this game, and I never knew why I hated it so much until after reading. The game is simply to fair its not that exciting, you play it a bunch of times you know all the answers etc... Giving everyone a chance to SHINE kind of defeats the purpose of a game. Games are meant to be played having a winner, a loser, and those middle people who have neither title. I m just finally glad I understand why I dont like the game. Anyway...games are great I love them, tweens and kids today also love games and anything that is advertised to look cool on TV.
 

always forgetting to put my name...Carolynn for the last post
 

Eda Karahan

The "Risky Business" articles states that "teenagers are widely seen as the toughest sell for marketers", and I believe that to be very true. Most of the time it is hard for an adult to try and go back and have the mind set of a teenager, especially todays teens. Kids from the age of 3-15 are the most easily influenced audience when it comes to marketing. The product is nothing until it's actually the biggest and best, and the way that is shown is through marketing and advertising the hell out of the product, basically "dramatizing" it. It also becomes a big hit when the kids see their friends with the product, that's when they definately have to have it. Now a days, everything is about high tech, electronic toys. I remember when I was younger we had regular ole' basic toys we played with, and now its PS2, iPODS, cellphones, etc... Basically, the more expensie and high tech, the more they'll want it. Even when we were kids, we were still the toughest to market for, but we didn't shoot so hight as they do now. The market is not just about selling the product that people need, but making them believe they do. It's about creating hungry and greedy consumers, that are longing for more! I think that a lot is starting to be exaggerated a bit, what is a little kid going to do with such a high tec toy...its stupid, but it is just the way things work now.

I think the game Cranium was great! I enjoyed it very much the first time I played and could not get enough of it. I think the concept of letting people "shine" works well, everything does not need to be competitive. I think it is absolutely fine if everyone does not have a title, games are about having fun and enjoying the time, not about pointing at who is the loser and who is the winner. Of course its great when you win, and everyone wants to be a winner, but thats not reality. So instead of having a particular person gloat about winning, I think it should be about fun and games and not end it hurt feelings or fighting.
 

Niki Zengerle

We live (unfortunately) in a culture that has become obsessed and defined by commercialism and consumption. It seems to me that it is a product of natural evolution that the highly competitive world of marketing has begun to go after a younger and younger audience, and tweens are simply the latest casualties in the battle. Tweens, according to Ann Hulbert, are a unique demographic because they possess the strong desire to fit in and be perceived as cool by their peers, but they still desire the approval and support of their parents, unlike their older counterparts. She draws a parallel between “middle childhood” and middle age, claiming that both groups are “uneasy conformists who seek security through consumption” and whose obsessive energies are “channeled into acquisitive activity”. To me, marketing to tweens is a natural conclusion. Children live what they learn and what they see. In short, they are predisposed to copy the behavior of their parents. It isn’t a new phenomenon that young children emulate older siblings and parents alike. It’s just that the toys have become real. The Fisher Price telephone your two year old pretended to talk into has become the new Virgin Cell Phone. And after fashion conscious Gen X parents dress their young toddler in Osh Kosh designer digs (at about forty bucks an outfit!!) it is a fairly seamless shift to the designer labels preferred among tweens. If Mom and Dad are continually buying grown up “toys” why not them? Marketing companies have simply figured out at what age children begin to have opinions about what they wear and what they own. Now they have simply begun to create the same “need” in the children that they have already successfully created in their parents, and parents are suckers for the desires of their “closet children”, whose approval they wish to hold onto just a little bit longer.
As for the question about the future and effects of board games: Tait and Alexander’s Cranium game company believes that the games they produce offer a sense of accomplishment and shine that counters the “overwhelming presence of negativity” that exists in other entertainment choices. By zeroing in on “America’s insatiable thirst for self-esteem”, and offering games where everyone can be the winner at some time during the game, they have succeeded in creating an atmosphere of camaraderie and unity rather than competition that has gotten kids and families back into game playing and offered an alternative to more solitary entertainments. I think that this philosophy has already proved to be a success based on the number of new board games sold in the last few years. I do agree with the thought that nostalgia is partly responsible for keeping the old board games like Monopoly popular, but I also think that people still enjoy playing them even if they are competitive, because winning out over your relatives is an activity enjoyed by a lot of families, and a part of the tradition at holidays and gatherings. I think that cranium’s philosophy of “everybody shines” will help to ensure the future of board games, and perhaps as younger generations grow up the “old classics” they buy for their own children will be the newer games they are playing today.
 

Evan Bussiere

Let’s face it, people still buy Monopoly because it is a pure reflection of the American social and economic system. One person eventually overtakes all the property and has all the money at the end of the game. The losers can’t even have a measly ghetto like Baltic Ave. at the end of the game, and end up broke and dejected. Sound fimiliar to anyone? The classic games, which should also include Chess and Othello, will never go out of style because winning will never go out of style. I don’t think Tait and Alexander won much in their youth. They were probably the last people chosen for any sports team and were too timid to compete at many things. Games can be as frustrating as they are rewarding. The premise of only having one winner in a game goes back to the origon of games themselves. If Cranium would have been introduced in the 1950’s, it would have been deemed communist propaganda.
As far as the commercialization of tweens is concerned, I feel it is enevitable. Marketing, like all evil capitalistic devices, has to continually evolve or it will die a stagnant death. New products are constantly being added to the marketplace that replace perfectly “good” products. But the addition of an entirely new market is a potentially huge money- maker for companies. Anytime a new demographic is opened up, there will be an influx of marketing directed towards said market, which is what we are seeing today. Blame it all on those damn Olsen twins and Leif Garrett.