The other day Mrs. T. asked me to pick up a birthday present for one of the Tadpoles' friends and when I asked her what sorts of things the child was into, her response was a list of brands. Disney Princesses, Dora and Webkinz.


I processed the information without comment, but as I roamed the aisles of Toys'R'Us it hit me that kids today are very much defined by what brands they are into. And if you ever want to see the term "megabrand" in action, I suggest you look at kid's brands.
Let's take Dora the Explorer, for example. Dora, for those of you without young children, is a six-year-old bilingual Latina who started life as a cartoon on the popular Nickelodeon channel. She's one of the few female stars of children's television, and as a result, she's become immensely popular. A few years ago, Dora was joined by her cousin Diego (he has his own show, Go Diego, Go, which was designed to appeal to boys in the preschool demographic.) But from tiny cartoons do mighty merchandising empires grow.
There is Dora cereal. Dora Campbell's soup. Dora mac'n'cheese. Dora play clothes. Dora dress clothes. Dora shoes and Dora sneakers. Dora pajamas. Dora towels. Dora bedding. Dora beds. Dora dressers. Dora lamps. Dora bowls, plates, cups and silverware. Dora toothpaste. Dora toothbrushes. Dora jewelry. Dora bats. Dora balls. Dora tennis racquets. Dora Candyland. Dora Chutes'n'Ladders. Dora Junior Scrabble. Dora bikes and Dora trikes. Dora CDs. Dora books. Dora websites. Dora calendars. Dora greeting cards. Dora backpacks. Dora school supplies. Dora birthday party accessories. Dora umbrellas.
In fact, it is entirely possible for a four-year-old to spend an entire year using nothing but Dora-themed food, clothing and household accessories.
But wait! There's more!
Like princesses? There's Princess Dora and her entire line of princess-themed merchandise. (Which kind of defeats the whole notion of Dora as an athletic, adventurous, PoMo female.) What about mermaids? Well, they've got Dora's Mermaid Adventure for you. Are you a boy who like pirates? Well, Dora and Diego have a pirate adventure. And yo-ho-ho–it's got lots of merchandise too.
But returning to my original point, girls today are not "into dolls" or "into ponies" or "into princesses." They're "into" specific dolls. Specific ponies. Very specific princesses. (If you think Dora has an empire going, check out what Disney's done with the Princess franchise.) Even games with their own identifiable brands (Candyland, Monopoly, Scrabble) now have multiple character-themed editions.
So what does this teach our kids? That things have no value unless they're associated with a specific brand. That the brands you choose define who you are. That friendships can be based on nothing more than liking the same brands.
In other words, all the things adults say and do, only without the artifice to make it all socially acceptable. Still, I can't help feeling that a lot's been lost from childhood as a result of the constant drive towards branding. And no, better parenting won't help. Preschool kids don't quite grasp the concept of "being an individual" (at that age, fitting in is paramount.) Banning TV is no panacea either–plenty of kids discover Thomas or Dora or SpongeBob without ever having actually laid eyes on a second of video. Talk about viral ;)
So I'm very curious to see how this generation of branded-at-birth children deals with it as they grow up. Will they reject branding? Or embrace it even more firmly?
Time, as told on hundreds of thousands of Dora watches, wall clocks and talking alarm clocks, will tell.