When is advertising no longer child's play?

When is advertising no longer child's play?

By Bruce Emond

JAKARTA (JP): It could be termed the "Joshua Phenomenon". With
his impish grin, trademark Rip Van Winkle cap and high cuteness
quotient, Joshua Suherman is the reigning prince charming of the
country's entertainment world.

His signal tune Diobok-obok (All stirred up) was adopted as a
reform movement metaphor, telling of the "little fish" tossed
around in tumultuous seas. The precocious seven-year-old stars in
his own TV comedy series, the aptly named Joshua Anak Ajaib
(Joshua the Wonder Boy), and is the host of a weekly TV quiz
show.

If imitation is really the sincerest form of flattery, then
Joshua rules the roost. His winning ways with the public have
spawned a legion of pretenders vying for a piece of his kingdom,
although few measure up to his command of mimicry and unusually
mature comebacks.

Joshua's potential marketability has not been lost on
advertisers. He has endorsed a slew of products, from candy to
multivitamins, a printer and powdered milk, for a reported asking
price of Rp 100 million a pitch.

He has literally set the stage for a host of other child stars
and would-be advertising moppets whose grinning faces adorn
billboards and TV screens across the land.

But even in an advertising industry desperate to pull itself
out of the lingering economic crisis, there are voices of
disquiet about the use of children to plug products unrelated to
their daily lives.

"The industry has a code of ethics which stipulates that
children cannot be used in advertising unrelated products," said
Yusca Ismail from Perwanal Darcy advertising.

"That means they can advertise milk or a candy, but it is
inappropriate to use them as the main spokesperson for, say, a
car or medicine."

Yusca is a member of the Indonesian Advertising Association's
Supervisory Board, which meets monthly to discuss complaints
regarding advertisements. He said the industry's code of ethics
and various regulations pertained to the use of children in
advertising, but the Supervisory Board lacked teeth in
disciplining errant advertisers.

"It is a case of a lot of rules but very little enforcement.
We don't have the power to enforce them -- if our members want to
listen, that's good, but they can just as easily ignore our
reports."

Yusca said ultimately it came down to the ticklish problem of
the bottom line.

"We can urge our members to follow the code of ethics, but if
they don't, then it is up to the media to reject those ads which
are inappropriate. The problem is that we are talking about a lot
of money here, and very few, if any, media companies are in the
position to reject ads."

It is up to ad agencies to nudge clients into appropriate
territory in using children for advertisements, said MACS909
executive creative director Ariyanto Zainal.

"The client may be pushing for the use of a particular star,
like Joshua, even though the agency feels its inappropriate.
We're working for them, they're the king, but we're also working
for their best interests. So we have to redirect the client, to
meet somewhere in the middle. At the end of the day, the client
is happy and we are happy."

While Yusca and Ariyanto acknowledged that Joshua was one of a
kind for kids in Indonesian advertising, they both expressed
concern that he was being overused.

"There comes a time when you reach the saturation point,"
Yusca said. "My concern is that he often advertises products
unrelated to him, and I can't understand that from a marketing
point of view."

Ariyanto drew parallels between Joshua's ubiquitous presence
and advertisers' recurring use a couple of years ago of Rano
Karno because of his popularity as Doel, the protagonist from the
TV series Si Doel Anak Sekolahan (Doel the Graduate), and his
chipmunk-cheeked doltish sidekick Mandra.

"Doel was just about everywhere," he recalled. "But in terms
of marketing it's not beneficial to use the same person over and
over again. The public loses the connection to the brand or
product -- they remember the commercial because Doel was in it,
but forget the product it was advertising."

He said there was an inherent danger in using Joshua "because
what is coming through is Joshua's personality, not the identity
of the brand".

Another concern is the welfare of the child actors and the
danger of exploitation.

The slippery slope of fame is littered with the bruised egos
of has-been child stars who lost their appeal once the ravages of
puberty set in. Most of the cautionary tales concern child actors
from the U.S., but at least one wildly popular teen queen pop
singer in Indonesia and a male actor who made his name in the
early 1980s died young, their deaths rumored to be related to
drug abuse.

Yusca said the ugly spectacle of stage mothers remained rare
in Indonesia, with most parents of child actors merely drawn by
the novelty of seeing their offspring on TV.

But he said it was up to those around child entertainers to
pursue their best interests.

"It is really the responsibility of those who manage the
stars, and I'm talking here about both adult and child
entertainers, to manage them properly, to select the vehicles
which are right for them. They must always remember that there is
a saturation point."

Joshua's mother, Lisa, who manages her son's career along with
husband Jeddy, answered the concerns in an interview last year.

"Nobody knows my son better than I do. I know when he feels
sick, when he's down, I'm always there for him. I know what is
best for him."

However, in a comment that some concerned observers of child
entertainers might consider disturbing, she added that Joshua was
already a pro in determining what was best for his career.

"If he has a sore throat, he knows that he cannot eat krupuk
(fried prawn crackers) because it might make it worse. He knows
that he wouldn't be able to sing as well on stage."