The Marketing of Children's Toys: Critical Perspectives on Children's Consumer Culture - Paperback

by Rebecca C. Hains (Editor), Nancy A. Jennings (Editor)

This book offers rich critical perspectives on the marketing of a variety of toys, brands, and product categories. Topics include marketing undertaken by specific children's toy brands such as American Girl, Barbie, Disney, GoldieBlox, Fisher-Price, and LEGO, and marketing trends characterizing broader toy categories such as on-trend grotesque toys; toy firearms; minimalist toys; toyetics; toys meant to offer diverse representation; STEM toys; and unboxing videos. Toy marketing warrants a sustained scholarly critique because of toys' cultural significance and their roles in children's lives, as well as the industry's economic importance. Discourses surrounding toys--including who certain toys are meant for and what various toys and brands can signify about their owners' identities--have implications for our understandings of adults' expectations of children and of broader societal norms into which children are being socialized.

Author Biography

Rebecca Hains, PhD., is Professor of Media and Communication at Salem State University, USA. She is author of Growing Up With Girl Power: Girlhood on Screen and in Everyday Life (2012) and The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through the Princess-Obsessed Years (2014) and co-editor of Cultural Studies of LEGO: More Than Just Bricks (2019).

Nancy Jennings, PhD., is a Professor in the Department of Communication with affiliate appointments in the Department of Journalism and Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, USA. She is also Director of the Children's Education and Entertainment Research (CHEER) Lab.