Candy-coated Marketing

Sheena Horgan, the author of Candy-Coated Marketing, writes: 'This eBook was months in the writing but 16 years in the thinking. In those 16 years, I have witnessed, debated, discussed, read, researched and written extensively about marketing to children in the UK and Ireland. And for the last 14 of those 16 years, my views and interest in the subject have been influenced by motherhood. Whilst my aim in this eBook has been to lift the lid of the Pandora's Box of accepted marketing norms regarding children, I should state upfront that I remain a marketer through and through. I am an advocate and believer in the value of marketing as a business tool and modern social construct. But I am also a mother of four and both conscious and concerned about how marketing can be - and is being - used with respect to children. However much it may be refuted and debated, there is no doubt in my mind that today's children's experience of childhood is marked by the excesses of modern society's commercialism and consumerism - and that includes marketing. I believe that it is irresponsible to have information and not to act on it, so it is my contention that brands and businesses today need to take their corporate citizenship seriously and to engage responsibly with, and to the benefit of, children.' Candy-coated Marketing portrays marketing to children as a widespread and often inappropriate business practice, but it also corroborates marketing's ability to evoke and elicit change. Ultimately, it is the positive potential of this 'change' that is Sheena Horgan's primary motivation in writing.

About the Author :
Sheena Horgan is a leading consultant and commentator on youth/family and social marketing issues in Ireland and the UK. She has over 20 years media and marketing experience, and since 2004 has specialized in the youth and family market, and consequently also in ethical and social marketing issues. Sheena has worked both in Ireland and the UK, where she founded and ran a top 100 communications agency. She was invited on to the Conservative Party's Children's Taskforce and is a named contributor to the ground-breaking Bailey Review, Letting Children Be Children, published in June 2011. Sheena writes a monthly ethical and social marketing column in the Irish Marketing Journal, and is a regular contributor on ethical and youth/family issues to radio programmes such as Lunchtime, Global Village, The Right Hook, Tubridy, The Business, Down to Business, Coleman at Large. Sheena is widely published also in UK and Irish trade magazines and newspapers, as well as speaking at various conferences on related topics. And Sheena is the proud mother of four wonderful girls.