Kids

Pottery Barn Kids aims the same aggressive approach at younger consumers. "We've created the girl's bedroom she'll love for years to come," says the effusive catalog text. A bed is never just something to sleep in; it's a spiritual experience: "A canopy bed is every girl's dream." A playroom is never merely fun, but also "inspirational and practical." Unlike the unfortunate episode of "Kids Trading Spaces" that featured Jennifer crying about her makeover, the boys and girls pictured throughout the PBKids catalog, in tastefully designed photo spreads, are uniformly ecstatic about their new rooms.

A recent book titled Branded: the Buying and Selling of Teenagers (Perseus, $25) explores the rationale behind the growing attention companies pay to consuming kids. As author Alissa Quart explains: "Companies…are attracted to teens and preteens spending money today, hooking them into a cycle of labor and shopping during their youth. Teen-oriented brands now aim to register so strongly in kids' minds that the appeal will remain for life."

In other words, kids who decorate their rooms with products and accessories from PBKids and PBTeen may, when they're older, fill their own homes with products from Pottery Barn. At least that's the plan.

Infants

The marketing gets more aggressive the older kids are, but it starts at the earliest ages imaginable. Most common are toy catalogs that try to make it sound like dollhouses or water slides pack an intellectual development component. At least that's the angle pursued on the "toys to grow on" catalog (ttgo.com) and the "One Step Ahead" catalog from leapsandbounds.com, which claims that its products are "Helping Kids Grow, Laugh and Learn."

The pressure to produce smart kids begins long before they even know what toys are. Last year saw the debut of a new breed of "super baby" infant formulas available from Abbot Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and other players in the $3 billion formula market. Most of the "super baby" formulas feature increased levels of fatty acids along with a combination of more than two dozen vitamins and minerals.

Manufacturers claim these souped-up baby formulas jump-start infant I.Q. and eyesight. The Food and Drug Administration doesn't agree with the companies' claims that fatty acids achieve these ends, but it has permitted these claims to appear in the companies' marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics has expressed concerns about "unknown adverse effects."

Prenatal

I'm not making this up. Honest. Author Susan Linn devotes a portion of Consuming Kids to the increasing efforts marketers are making to target consumers before they're even born. I won't give you all the gory details of these emerging techniques, but you can rest assured the relentless quest for consumers won't be halted by scientific limitations or quaint ethical concerns.

Those who study and write about marketing have long agreed that pop culture, including advertising and marketing, can have a profound impact on how children form their identities. That's precisely why marketers target kids. They want young consumers to make products and corporations a central piece of who they are and what they buy.

Cultish Marketing

A new book takes the study of marketing even further. For those of you who dismissed the comments in this article comparing marketing to spiritual formation, take a look at a new book which argues that the means companies use to cultivate consumer loyalty are similar to the methods cults use to recruit adherents.

Douglas Atkin is a strategy director for a New York ad agency. In his spare time he's written a book called The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers (Portfolio, $24.95).

Atkin argues that human beings are inherently spiritual. "Few stronger emotions exist than the need to belong and make meaning," he writes. He then tries to draw a dotted line that compares the ways companies like eBay (the online shopping outlet), JetBlue (the airline) and the Marine Corps (you know who they are) do their marketing to the ways that groups like the Unification Church and the Landmark Forum attract believers.

The Culting of Brands is an intriguing book. You'll have to decide on your own how well Atkin succeeds in making his case, but there's no arguing about whether or not kids are being targeted by marketers. The only thing left to decide is whether or not you're going to do anything in your work with young people to help them understand and protect themselves from these aggressive and destructive commercial assaults.