Some Advice from a 7 Year Old

[Steve]

I don't see an ethical issue with a school trying to appeal directly to the people they will be training, even if it's kids. Of course, the marketing approach can add an ethical issue, so perhaps that's what you were getting at?

I do see a practical issue, but the success of other types of marketing to kids suggests I may be wrong about that.

Ethical may be too strong a word. Marketing directly to kids seems funky to me. To be clear, I don’t know what he has in mind, which is why I asked the question.

 

[Steve]

I never thought anything negative of this. Toy commercials on TV market to children, not the parents.

I know of at least two TKD dojangs in my area that have passenger vans that pick children up from local schools, and the vans themselves are huge billboards that the other children will see when school lets out for the day.

As a parent, it’s pretty negative. There are a lot of ways to manage it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t problematic.

And as Gerry alluded to, there are different kinds of marketing, some passive and some active. Actively marketing to kids’ insecurities would be a concern for me. “Hey kids. Are you worried about being mugged?”

 

[Hot Lunch]

As a parent, it’s pretty negative. There are a lot of ways to manage it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t problematic.

And as Gerry alluded to, there are different kinds of marketing, some passive and some active. Actively marketing to kids’ insecurities would be a concern for me. “Hey kids. Are you worried about being mugged?”

Martial arts is many things, but one thing it is probably more than anything else is a form of self-improvement. Now how something is marketed as self-improvement without playing to insecurities (maybe there's a better word for it, so that the idea sounds more palatable?); I'm not sure how that's done.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Ethical may be too strong a word. Marketing directly to kids seems funky to me. To be clear, I don’t know what he has in mind, which is why I asked the question.

Sounds like we may have been thinking along the same lines, then. For sure, some approaches to marketing to kids are unethical, which should cause us to always question whether we're crossing any lines when we do.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

As a parent, it’s pretty negative. There are a lot of ways to manage it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t problematic.

And as Gerry alluded to, there are different kinds of marketing, some passive and some active. Actively marketing to kids’ insecurities would be a concern for me. “Hey kids. Are you worried about being mugged?”

To me, there's a distinct difference between saying "be able to deal with a bully" and painting a frightening mental picture of being bullied. Which I think is the same as what you're talking about here. If a kid isn't already worried about dealing with bullies, the "be able to deal with a bully" marketing won't appeal to them. Stronger marketing in areas like this is designed to generate fear (or at least anxiety) about a topic, then promise to remove that feeling. That's questionable, at the least, when applied to adults. When applied to kids - even in a softer manner - I don't think there's even a question.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Martial arts is many things, but one thing it is probably more than anything else is a form of self-improvement. Now how something is marketed as self-improvement without playing to insecurities (maybe there's a better word for it, so that the idea sounds more palatable?); I'm sure how that's done.

I've certainly never been good at it. I never liked marketing on fear, so I tried to market positive results, instead. My marketing was also never very effective.

 

[Steve]

Martial arts is many things, but one thing it is probably more than anything else is a form of self-improvement. Now how something is marketed as self-improvement without playing to insecurities (maybe there's a better word for it, so that the idea sounds more palatable?); I'm not sure how that's done.

I disagree. Or maybe more accurate to say I think martial arts is one of many activities that can be healthy and rewarding. It’s not better for self improvement than any other productive hobby.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I disagree. Or maybe more accurate to say I think martial arts is one of many activities that can be healthy and rewarding. It’s not better for self improvement than any other productive hobby.

I didn't read that as saying it was any better than other things - just that it was the strong suit of MA. I agree entirely that there are plenty of other activities that can - with the right people involved - be as beneficial for self development. There are plenty of folks with stories about their sports coaches setting high expectations of behavior and character, in much the same way some MA instructors do.

 

[Oily Dragon]

TKD dojangs in my area that have passenger vans that pick children up from local schools, and the vans themselves are huge billboards that the other children will see when school lets out for the day.

Now that, is just creepy.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I disagree. Or maybe more accurate to say I think martial arts is one of many activities that can be healthy and rewarding.

Healthy? I have mixed feelings about that. Can be, sure that's the theory. Will be? Depends.

One of the staples of a long martial arts life is injury. My first was 33 years ago, and I can still almost feel it.

This is probably a good point to bring up here, the irony of kids training martial arts, which (when done correctly) is one of the more dangerous hobbies. Pushups? How about one punch to the nose? That'll end many a kids martial arts fantasy.

I know parents who will not put their kids into football, but have no problem signing them up for MMA class. Scratch my head.

When I was a kid, getting a soccer ball in my belly was enough to send me home. But that was some of the best full contact practice I ever had.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Healthy? I have mixed feelings about that.

The moment that we have introduced the following terms into MA discussion, the moment that MA training will become a completely different thing.

- health,
- inner peace,
- culture study,
- self-improvement,
- self-cultivation,
- ...

When you

- punch on your opponent's head, that's not good for your opponent's "health".
- swing your sword and try to cut your opponent's head off, that's not for "inner peace".
- knee down in front of a foreign country flag in your school, that's not "culture study".

 

[Steve]

I didn't read that as saying it was any better than other things - just that it was the strong suit of MA. I agree entirely that there are plenty of other activities that can - with the right people involved - be as beneficial for self development. There are plenty of folks with stories about their sports coaches setting high expectations of behavior and character, in much the same way some MA instructors do.

I think we are saying the same thing. MA taught well and in a good school can be great for self development. Same as anything else. And like anything else, it can be destructive, too. There is nothing intrinsic to martial arts that makes it better or worse for self development than pretty much any other thing. Implying otherwise can be problematic.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

Anyway, tying everything together, after working with kids a bit, I don't see TKD's biggest benefit as being the often touted "self-defence".

To me, it's gross motor skill development, particularly when kids are involved in other sports.

Sorry, EDIT: I meant that TKD is particularly valuable for gross motor skill development when the kids are NOT involved in other sports.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Sorry, EDIT: I meant that TKD is particularly valuable for gross motor skill development when the kids are NOT involved in other sports.

Also, when they are.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This just reads a little weird to me. Do you mean they were marketing to parents who were worried about their kids being bullied? Something about a school marketing directly to kids seems off to me, practically and ethically.

You are marketing to the kids needs. Not marketing directly to the kids. kids are like everyone else. "They have problems too". If the parent is active in those kids life then the parents are aware of the challenges their children have.

So if you want kids who will take your teaching serious then you want to target kids who have that type of need for Martial Arts. The phrase "Targeting Kids" sounds bad because you you are looking at it through your "self-defense glasses" and not your business glasses.. Who is your target market? Who do you want to sell your goods and services to?

Definition:
"A target market is a group of people that have been identified as the most likely potential customers for a product because of their shared characteristics, such as age, income, and lifestyle. Identifying the target market is a key part of the decision-making process when a company designs, packages, and advertises its product."

If a kid has needs?
A kid is cold " design comfortable coat for kids" Your target market isn't the parent it's the kids. The parent doesn't have the wear the coat the child does. So when you test that product you use kids to try it out and get their opinion about it. Now lets look at it from a martial arts schools.

You want kids who take your training serious. First identify your market. What type of kids take martial arts classes seriously.
1. Kids who need mentors. Preferable those who are looking for mentors. They want to be like their favorite action star, or they are just naturally attracted to martial arts. Some kids like boxing so they look for mentors to teach them boxing.
2. Kids who are competitive and want to do competition and win. Who doesn't like to win a competition and show off a medal?
3. Kids who like to fight or rough-house but need to channel that energy into something constructive.
4. Kids who are being bullied and wish they could do something about it.
5. Kids who are scared about being bullying even though they may not be experiencing that now.

Your market would be youth as definded by age. Your Target Market would be specific youth that fit a specific characteristic that you want to have in your school as a student.

These are sample groups of markets that you will try to sell your martial arts services to.. Here's part of wording I had on the school site when it existed. "Bullies (both adult and child versions) will see you as a someone who should be avoided instead of someone they should harass" This statement targets kids. While some adults have bullies, most don't. Most kids have bullies and most parents who are active in their child's life know when their kids are being bullied. The child has a need "not to be bullied." The parent has a desire "not to have their child bullied." So with that statement I'm targeting children who have this problems. These are kids who fall into Group #4 and Group#5 above.

This targets teenagers. "Teens enjoy it as it allows them to cope with "ups and downs" of being a teenager. It has been medically proven that exercise + Fun = great cure for depression." the cure for depression here is not the medical chemical balance related depression. I'm referring to the natural depression that most kids go through like "not fitting in, not having friends, not having an escape, not having support." Some of our students had really difficult times but they always looked forward to coming to class. It was often said by many students, that the class was the one place where they could drop all of their worries for an hour a more. They get lost in the training and get an emotional and mental break. Sometimes kids came in Angry, they would go and take it out on the bag. Instructors would give them the space to let it out, and then would follow up and check on them. We were supportive of everyone. After all sometimes it was a place where Instructors could drop their problems as well. We got depressed too, but for an hour or so we could clear our mind and just be in the present.

"This positive mindset is critical to learning so if a student is having a bad day, the instructors will help students to let go of the negative emotion. As a student you will find that our school is truly a place where you can forget your problems for at least an hour or two."

Here is the website that I designed and wrote.
"https://web.archive.org/web/20170312014323/http://www.jowgakfa.com/kungfu/"

Children and kids aren't going to read your website. The parents just need to know that you meet their kids needs. We never got a call asking if we have an after school program for kids. Why? because we never marketed to them or their parents.

This is from a TKD site that has one of the program "After school martial arts classes are the best way to give your child the confidence and skills to become a real leader. " These are words that I would never say. I used to run after school program for a living, so I know first hand that there are better programs that achieve these goals than a martial arts school. If you do a search for these types of schools then you'll see how much more marketing to kids that they do than what I did.

My entire perspective on martial arts is that
1. It's not an after school program.
2. Many of the things that adults are concerned about are the same things kids are concerned about in terms of "not getting attacked."
3. If the goals are the same, then the children can train at the same time as the adults. This is especially true if you offer special family pricing where if the parents who train with their kids get special pricing. So families with 2 or more kids save big time so long as the parent participates in class.

After the initial warm up drills Adults split off and kids split off but train in the same room. The Adults who take the classes seriously allow kids to see how they should be training. It also feeds on the kids natural desire to do better than us old people. The adults worked hard because their motivation was "I'm not old yet." While this was not the focus of the class. It existed.


Now if you want a bunch of kids who want to be dropped off somewhere for a "martial arts baby sitter" then throw in a martial arts school program.

This is a statement from one of those martial arts schools
"A FAR Better Alternative to Day Care, After School Martial Arts for Kids" This is not marketed to kids. Kids don't care about this stuff. The target market for this are parent who don't care about their kids learning martial arts and they are just looking for a place to drop their kids off.

This is a review from the same site that I've been using for the After school example. "Nobody bothers me anymore. I LOVE the Martial Arts!”" That school fulfilled a child's need. Any child who has the same problem he had would be all in.

This same school does Martial Arts Birthday parties for kids. I guess they use the birthday parties to attract new customers. For my school we didn't need that. We just targeted those who would find value in "Nobody bothers me anymore."

Hopefully this clears up what I mean when I say "Target Marketing"

 

[JowGaWolf]

I don't see an ethical issue with a school trying to appeal directly to the people they will be training, even if it's kids. Of course, the marketing approach can add an ethical issue, so perhaps that's what you were getting at?

I do see a practical issue, but the success of other types of marketing to kids suggests I may be wrong about that.

Businesses market to kids all the time. I can pull up tons of examples like this. Do we really think "Happy Meal" was being marketed to parents. Or that "Martial Arts Birthday Party" is targeting adults. Do a Google image search for "Martial Arts Birthday Party." Then ask me how many adults want to have their party there? lol.

The adults at our school did cook outs where students got together outside the school to just enjoy each other's company and food. Our cook outs were the best in terms of food because of the diversity. Kids liked it because they could hang out with classmates without being so formal.

"Marketing to kids" always get a bad rep becasue it of high profile cases like marketing cigarettes and smoking to kids. So there's an assumption that ALL marketing to kids is bad. Disney is probably the king of marketing to kids.. Disney markets to kids and then kids high pressure their parents to go see movies or visit the amusement parks.

But if schools want a specific type of student in their school, then best business practice says to market to the target market that you want in your school. If you don't want kids that are rude, then don't market to the groups that contain rude kids. But like everything in marketing, Marketing SHOULD BE ETHICAL no matter who is your customer.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I never thought anything negative of this. Toy commercials on TV market to children, not the parents.

I know of at least two TKD dojangs in my area that have passenger vans that pick children up from local schools, and the vans themselves are huge billboards that the other children will see when school lets out for the day.

Oldest trick in the book. Market to a kid, that way the kid will high pressure sell your business to their parents for you. So when the parent shows up you can act all innocent. For me, I never took that route with martial arts. Things like that tend to be not as permanent. It's like what many of us experienced as kids. We saw a toy that looked cool on TV and then when we got it, we were like "This sucks." and we never played with the toy again lol. It's good if you sell toys because you just want that one purchase. It's not so good when you are looking for reoccurring purchases. So the best way to over come that is to market to a parent's need for the child to go before or afterschool. But that also includes some other legal issues. In most states you have regulations and licenses to be an afterschool program. There are also some funding benefits also. You can get financial funding for an afterschool program. You can literally get more than $100,000 from after school program funding. There are some pros and cons. But most martial arts teachers only want to teach martial arts and not more.

I used apply and get grants for such things and it's not difficult, but your record keeping better be on point. I don't mind grant writing, but I don't want to do grant writing and teaching. That's too much like "real work." You'll always be concerned about attendance and record keeping if you don't have someone covering that for you.. You'll also need students like you breath air. The more students the larger the grant. If I choose this route then I would hire a person to write grants and greet parents and prospective students. I would get a marketer and manager as well. I wouldn't want to leave work only to think about more work.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Ethical may be too strong a word. Marketing directly to kids seems funky to me. To be clear, I don’t know what he has in mind, which is why I asked the question.

Steve. I appreciate that you asked. High Five on that.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Actively marketing to kids’ insecurities would be a concern for me. “Hey kids. Are you worried about being mugged?”

Yeah that's extreme. Most active marketing to kids is less aggressive and doesn't play on the fear of kids. I see how fear is used in politics and how it poisons mind, so I definitely don't want that in the place where they can let go of their troubles. I don't want people to train out of fear. That's no good for me and no good for them as students. Fear shouldn't drive their training like that.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I've certainly never been good at it. I never liked marketing on fear, so I tried to market positive results, instead. My marketing was also never very effective.

ha ha ha.. you have to make sure that your positive stuff applies to the target market that is interested in what you offer. You can get me to train Aikido, but as soon as you go zen, I'm out lol. If we are sparring then I'll have to punch you in the face and meditate that lol... Which is funny because if I was looking for ways to "meditate in motion" then I'll be all over the zen. I just don't want it in my martial arts lol.