Marketing to the Parents of  Kids Kid’s eyewear is always packaged with cute cases. The POP is attractive to kids. The furniture and fixtures are kid-sized and colorful. We fuss over kids when they come in our offices because, well, they’re, with a few exceptions, just plain adorable.

That’s all well and good, but kids aren’t forking over hard-earned cash for new glasses. Their parents are; and parents have an entirely different agenda and “adorability” is fairly low on their list of requirements. 

As of August 2009, the cost of raising a child in the US from birth to adulthood (18) has risen to $291,570. This is from the Department of Agriculture which has been calculating the costs since 1960, when the cost for a middle income family to raise a child was $25,300. No, that is not a typo. Having met very few 18 year old adults in my life, the spending won’t end there. College tuition is rising, jobs are scarce and many move from home to dorm and back again.

Kids are expensive.

While the kids are sitting in their appropriately sized chairs in the adorably decorated kids section of the shop, it’s time to talk with their parents about glasses.

It has been my experience that the majority of parents are concerned about four major criteria:

1. Necessity or Optional

2. Durability

3. Affordability

4. Repair, salvage or replacement

As always, lenses should be the first topic for discussion. You should explain how you will interpret the prescription. What the numbers mean, how the correction will impact the wearer and what, if any, adaptation issues may arise.

The basic material availabilities you should be offering are polycarbonate and Trivex®. Both materials offer high impact resistance, UV absorption and scratch resistant coatings. Both are lightweight and drillable. Their Abbe numbers, a measure of refractive efficiency or chromatic dispersion, are 31 for polycarbonate and 45 for Trivex^®. Crown glass, the “gold standard” for optical clarity has an Abbe number of 59. So the closer the number is to 59, the more efficient the lens is. There is a price difference and in the end that may play the more important role. Polycarbonate has been the material of choice for children and active adults since the late 1970’s and Trivex is the relative newcomer and is a bit more expensive. Both materials are available in clear and as variable tinting lenses, i.e. Transitions^®, SunSensors^®, InstaShades^® and LifeRx^®.

Another option to be offered is a high quality anti-reflective treatment. Now before you go all crazy on me; think a minute. We all spend far more time in front of a computer than ever before. Kids who used to spend the school day looking at a chalk board, now spend at least part of the day looking at a computer monitor. They also spend many more hours at home doing the same thing. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people are multi-tasking their way through a wide variety of electronic media every day, juggling iPods and instant messaging with TV, cell phones and hand-held gaming. 

The anti-reflective treatment that we always recommend for parents should be the same treatment we offer their kids, especially their “kids” who are learning to drive. Statistically, mile for mile, 16 and 17 year olds are about 3 times more likely to be involved in a fatal car crash at night than during the day and a good anti-reflective treatment will enhance their vision while driving at night by reducing the impact of glare from oncoming headlights.

The bare minimum lens product you should offer is polycarbonate with a good scratch resistant coating. From there you should guide parents through all the options and the associated benefits and costs. Never forget that you are the expert, but they are the financial managers.

Now on to the frame choices. At this point, the kids must be involved. Parents and their kids often have very different ideas about what frames are cool and what frames are not cool, often referred to as “dorky”. You need to help parents understand that if their kid doesn’t like the way the glasses look, they will not wear them. Oh, they may leave the house wearing them, but out of sight, those things are gone, gone, gone. Even if the kid can’t see very well, those dorky specs are history until the ride home from school. 

Almost every frame manufacturer in the world has a kid’s line of products. Some are branded with cartoon characters or pop stars, some are not.

“Advertising at its best is making people feel that without their product you’re a loser. Kids are very sensitive to that. If you tell them to buy something, they are resistant. But if you tell them they’ll be a dork if they don’t, you’ve got their attention.” –Nancy Shalek, former president of Grey Advertising.

Having a branded identity is no guarantee of quality or staying power. Some manufacturers are more protective of their brands identity than others. At the same time, just because a kid’s frame line does not have a well-known identity doesn’t mean it lacks quality. As the expert, you should educate parents about the things to look for in a good quality frame.

Begin with the frame material. 

• Plastic frames, actually cellulose acetate, should be coated to seal the frame material and protect the wearer from any allergic reactions and should keep the frame color from fading. Another “plastic” material to be considered is proprionate, which is about ¾ of the weight of cellulose acetate.
  

• Nylon based materials, such as polyamide or copolyamide are strong, extremely light weight, resistant to chemicals and hypoallergenic.
  

• Monel is an alloy of nickel, copper, iron and some traces of other elements. It is easily adjusted and holds its color very well. Good quality nickel based frames are coated to protect the roughly 10% of people with nickel allergies and to prevent corrosion.
  

• Stainless steel is strong and when made thin enough, very flexible. It’s resistant to corrosion and quite strong. It can be difficult to adjust.
  

• Titanium is the ultimate in metal frame materials due to its light weight, strength, corrosion resistance and its lack of allergic reactions. Titanium is also used with other metals as an alloy, and unless properly coated, allergic reactions could still occur. “Memory metals” are an alloy of titanium and other metals, specifically nickel to increase flexibility and also be properly coated. Titanium is difficult to solder or weld so repairing a broken titanium frame may not be possible. Titanium is also a more expensive material to process and can be costly.

Frame design and construction are also important for parents to understand. Kids frames should be designed with kids faces in mind. Most kids have low bridges and chubby cheeks, so just downsizing adult styles is not a good plan. Kid’s frames should allow the weight of the frame to rest at the bridge of the nose and on the ears, not on their cheeks. Steer kids towards frames with shallow “B” measurements.

Show parents the advantages of good temple design as well. Young children are usually best fitted with cable or riding bow temple styles. Either design does a great job of keeping the glasses where they belong on young faces. Conversion kits are available so that any metal or plastic temple can be converted to a riding bow design.

Bridge design is pretty straightforward. Saddle and unifit bridges usually fit those low bridges well, as do adjustable pads or strap bridges. Again, as the expert, bridge design and fit should be your choice.

Branded or un-branded, cartoon character or pop star and color is where the kids input is vital. If they like the look, color or shape and it fits properly, they’ll wear it. If they don’t, the glasses will disappear or unexplainably break.

A final word about protective eyewear for kids. According to The University of Illinois Eye Center, almost one third of sports-related eye injuries are to children between the ages of 5 and 14. Prevent Blindness America recommends that children wear protective goggles or face shields and that proper lenses should be made from polycarbonate. Protective eyewear should also bear an ASTM label indicating that they meet the standards of the American Society of Testing Materials for the specific sport.

Yes, that second sale is tough to ask for, but as the expert you have an obligation to discuss the need for protective eyewear with every parent.

Marketing to kids is not tough, educating parents requires knowledge and skill.

Judy Canty
ABO/NCLE