Branded: the buying and selling of teenagers

Summary
Branded, through startling facts taken from leading marketing publications, internal company reports and extensive personal interviews, investigates the practices of brand-name marketers in cashing in on $155 billion spent by teens on ‘leisure expenses.’ It is written as an exposé determined to bring the guerilla methods large corporations such as Nike, Visa, Disney, McDonalds, Coke and Pepsi use in teen marketing to the public’s attention. The book describes how marketing to the country’s youth involves plastering school gyms with advertising banners and contracting schools to use a certain brand of soft drink vending machines, as well as the recruitment of tens of thousands of teenagers as insider-interns to not only provide the company with current trends, but to advertise merchandise through their use of freebies given away by the company.

A few of the more surprising facts:
· One hundred and fifty school districts in twenty-nine states have Pepsi and Cok...