…in the pursuit of new customers, companies are shifting their marketing strategies to target a younger and younger demographic. First, “youth marketing” was the buzzword. Then, it was fine-tuned to the “tweens.” Now, newborns are the new base.         Beneath the Brand Blog

Yes, newborns.  A few years ago, some genius figured out that while a child must learn language and verbal skills in order to communicate their preferences, they are forming preferences even before that. Really, it goes all the way back to Walt Disney: ever notice how you can tell who’s the hero and the villain just by the way they are drawn?

And speaking of Disney, they are jumping into the marketing-to-babies thing in a big way. Now, at nearly 600 maternity hospitals in the US, Disney gives away “cozy, adorable bodysuits — often decorated with famous Disney protagonists —[for free], so long as Mom is willing to sign up for email updates from DisneyBaby.com, the new corporate initiative.”

Meanwhile, Ronald McDonald is one of the most recognizable figures to even the youngest kids – and Ronald is taking a lot of heat for supposedly wrecking your kids’ health and making them fat. So, there’s a downside. Anyway, there are further examples in the article online. So what do you think? Good? Bad? Dumb? Inevitable?