Pitches to tweens target parents, too

With an escalator ride to the mall's second floor, Jane and Rebecca DeHaven are adding to their pop-culture credentials.

The mother and 10-year-old daughter have come here on this slate-gray Saturday to catch the first public appearance of Girl Authority, a local nine-girl tween band whose self-titled album - a collection of pop-hit covers that evoke a blend of Spice Girls, Kidz Bop, and pajama-party karaoke - was released earlier this month.

"They're all community-theater talents," says Ms. DeHaven of the band members, who will file out soon, ponytails swinging, to sign posters at a record store here. "This was the core group that always got the leads."

Rebecca knows a few of the girls from local stage productions. Now she sees them in a new light: as budding icons in an entertainment galaxy that she and her mother explore together.

That togetherness makes the pair a new type of marketing target. In an age when many tweens - the demographic once defined as 8-to-12-year-olds but today often pushed down to 6 or younger - might feel inclined to follow the acts of cute kids turned edgy young adults (think Lindsay Lohan), some entertainment promoters and product marketers are directing more of their pitches at both parents and children.

"Marketers are getting to be more into parental approval," says Greg Livingston, executive vice president of WonderGroup, a Cincinnati firm that specializes in selling to youths.

Mr. Livingston says companies recognize, in particular, the increased involvement of younger mothers, many of whom are Internet savvy and better attuned to their children's voracious media diet and the many channels that feed it. Such mothers can bring to bear enormous word-of-mouth power.

That development is warily welcomed by proponents of "conscious parenting," who value parent-child interaction and the importance of knowing their children's cultural landscape. Some say they worry, however, about the implications of parental buy-in that doesn't always look closely enough at embedded sales pitches.

In pleated skirt and side-zipped boots, Rebecca reels off pop references as her mother chimes in. They know all the Nickelodeon and Disney creations - Zoey, Zack and Cody, High School Musical.

But their common experience runs deeper: They've just been to an American Idol-themed party, and before that to Wishes for Girls, the place for pedicures and "up-dos." They share a fondness for the American Girl club - "parent approved," says DeHaven, like Girl Authority. "We like it clean," she says.

Livingston points to signs that marketers have become more child- appropriate: A client recently told him that the Cartoon Network had declined ads for some video games seen as too aggressive for tween viewers. He also cites the work of groups such as the Children's Advertising Review Unit (affiliated with the Council of Better Business Bureaus) for causing marketers to be "more careful" about exerting sales pressure on the very young.

If they are being more careful, that's a positive development for parents, says Monique Tilford, acting director of the Center for the New American Dream, a consumer-advocacy group in Takoma Park, Md. "But marketers are still selling relentlessly and intently to children," she says. Ads embedded in video games are cropping up, as are ads transmitted to cellphones.

In the entertainment arena, tie-ins can be stark. The stage show "Barbie Live in Fairytopia," for example, began an 80-city tour this month, part of a brand-boosting push by Mattel.

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