Brand loyalty at 3?

I don't consider myself brand loyal.  In fact, I explicitly try to purchase clothes and item, especially for my children, that do not have brand names on them.  You won't see me in a t-shirt with BeBe across my chest.  My kids don't know what McDonald's is.  I live in a household with no television let alone TiVo, Netflix, or any other media stream, no radio (except in the car), and up until we moved into our current house, no microwave.  A good friend described us as living in the dark ages.  Others wonder if we are intellectual snobs.  Not really.  We just aren't tv fans and with two young children in the house would rather not have it now.  When we did have a tv, we rarely watched it, although I admit to missing a good episode of Iron Chef. So how did my three year old get so brand loyal already?

Despite my "brand neutral" stance, I was blown away while my daughter played the other day.  As I was preparing dinner, I listened to her telling me that she was off to the Apple store because her iPhone was broken and she needed to get it fixed.  Even the email wasn't working, she told me matter of factly.  Then she came back and was going to Whole Foods for some fruits and veggies, organic, of course.  The list continued as she "visited" many of our favorite haunts.  UGGH!  What have I done? I was sure that the lack of media in our house would keep her in the world of Winnie the Pooh (the original one not Disney), Max's Words, and No Visitors for Bear. 

My daughter has never seen Sesame Street; has no idea what Blues Clues is, and could care less about the Wiggles. And yet, she is well aware of Elmo because of the many books in the bookstore and can even tell you the names of the fish from Finding Nemo, even though she hasn't seen the movie.  The amount of branding across media is pretty phenomenal to me.  I was completely unaware of it pre-parenthood. 

The cross-marketing is everywhere.  You can hardly purchase a sticker book, lunch box, or backpack that isn't some how connected to some branded character or with the words of a store such as Gymboree printed across it.  So, here I am thinking, man, the marketers already got my kid.  At three she loves the Apple brand and others.  And while I like to think we select high quality items and truly do not purchase things often, it still is disturbing to think that my little girl already thinks of certain brands in her play world.   I am not sure it can be helped in Silicon Valley, but still it makes me just a little bit sad.   I can't help her replaying where we go, but I would love to see something without characters like Spongepants Bob, Dora, or Thomas the Train every once in awhile.  It certainly would be refreshing!

Original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post. M Felicity writes, lives, and shops in Silicon Valley.  Her opinions on everything can be found on her personal blog CAKE: Having it, eating it, loving it.  Additionally, she regularly writes for her business blog on everything work-life balance solutions, Cubes & Crayons.