Because it’s apparently not enough to have parents ordering cereal and watching The Man In The High Castle on Amazon Prime, the retail behemoth has been marketing a new-ish service called Amazon Teen to encourage youngsters to make their own purchases through their parents’ Prime accounts. In a comprehensive Twitter thread, Atlantic writer Taylor Lorenz breaks down how Amazon has been using Snapchat to target teens with a gaggle of teen-related tropes.
https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1068214286542127114
https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1068215042729017344
https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1068216492548939776
https://twitter.com/beveragegod/status/1068220234325262336
The Amazon Teen homepage says the service–which lets teens and parents keep their purchases separate–is only available for kids between 13 and 17, which brings up the potential regulatory minefield of advertising to children. The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority, for example, considers anyone under 16 a child and has strict rules regarding how companies can market to them.
Related: How Amazon Helped Cambridge Analytica Harvest Americans’ Facebook Data
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its Snapchat campaign.
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