In the old days we all feared aisle 3. You know the one. It is that section of the supermarket where they keep all the toys that no child needs but every child wants. Pre-pandemic, no one could get their kids out of aisle 3. And I mean no one. I live quite close to the Pecanwood Golf Estate so I encounter hardcore gangsters doing their household shopping on a relatively regular basis. I once saw a convicted drug lord, who was arrested in connection with the murder of Brett Kebble, begging and pleading with his offspring while they refused point blank to leave aisle 3. Like the rest of us, he was cajoling ineffectively while his child picked up and pondered the respective merits of every available item of over-priced Ninja Turtle nonsense. 

Several years have passed since the Kebble killing and, in the interim, children have transferred their affections en masse from the tiresome turtles to Paw Patrol. For the lucky few who have yet to encounter the current kiddie craze, Paw Patrol is a cartoon series starring a tech-savvy 10-year-old boy named Ryder and his posse of talking puppies. The canine crew are repeatedly called upon to save the bucolic, waterside community of Adventure Bay from an assortment of fires, floods, frosts, tornados, vermin attacks and oil spills. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Paw Patrol is probably no more awful than the fads which preceded it. It just menaces me more at the moment. For better and worse, child popular culture has always reflected the adult environment in which it thrived. Barbie’s body echoed the objectification of mid-century women and Paw Patrol offers insight into what political scientist Francis Fukuyama calls the “decay of democracies”. Adventure Bay is a Trumpian nightmare. Climate change often appears to be the underlying issue but a lack of competent leadership undoubtedly exacerbates many of the doggie dramas. Adventure Bay’s Mayor Goodway’s only qualification for the job seems to be that her grandfather previously held the position. Instead of maintaining the institutions necessary to mitigate Adventure Bay’s perpetually threatened lives, property and ecology, the aforementioned Beloved Leader divides her time between arguing with Mayor Humdinger from neighbouring Foggy Bottom and chasing Chickaletta, her pet chicken. 

The Paw Patrol live by their canine catchphrase “no job too big. No pup too small” – which is just as well because there are no other emergency or civic services on offer. These are the influencers to which our youth look for an understanding of the way the world works. It is essentially a merchandise machine with a reach that extends well beyond its aisle 3 epicentre. You name it and the pups have finagled their furry faces onto its packets. In addition to the towels, T-shirts, toothpastes, shampoos, bubble baths, deodorants, backpacks and pencil cases, Paw Patrol food is absolutely everywhere. My local supermarket currently stocks Paw Patrol branded biscuits, popcorn sprinkles, flapjack mix, muffin mix, cupcake mix, crackers, yoghurts, bottled water, bread rolls, apples, pears, malt drinks, jams, jellies, juices, party packs, Pez dispensers, biscuit cutters, cups, glasses, thermos flasks, bowl, plates, napkins and lunchboxes. Online shopping sites also sell Paw Patrol chicken nuggets, hotdogs, dried fruit and Easter eggs. All of the above is, of course, significantly more expensive than similar items sold without Paw Patrol’s picture on the packet. 

Until recently my cupboards have been piled high with such stuff. If asked about it I would have rolled my eyes and declared myself pretty much powerless against kid-corrupting capitalism. I am not alone. International research indicates that middle and upper income families are increasingly democratic units in which children exert significant influence on parental decision-making. Kirsty Bloore, Research Director for Viacom International Media Networks Australia and New Zealand, told the 2017 Sydney Marketing to Mums conference: “It’s not ‘pester power’ any more. Kids are fully involved in the family conversations and parents are really looking to them for opinions and guidance when they are in the supermarket. Ninety one percent of Australian parents agree that it is important to have respect for children’s thoughts and feelings when making purchasing decisions.” In 2018, American market research company Package Facts reported that: “26% of parents learn about a new product as a request from their child.” 

Not all families live so high on the hog. According to the June 2020 Statistics South Africa report; Child poverty in South Africa: A Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis, 62,1% of Mzansi’s children aged 0–17 years are multidimensionally poor. These young people are not entirely outside of Paw Patrol’s sphere of influence but they are much less able to push for product. The report states that: “Children experience poverty very differently from adults because they have to depend on others to meet their needs. They rarely have control over household finances and they usually don’t have the power to make decisions for their day-to-day lives.” 

In his 2018 book, Factfulness, Hans Rosling argued that, while history, language, culture and religion are differentiating factors, affluent people the world over are much more similar than they are different. He wrote that: “If you are reading this you probably live on level 4 with an income of greater than 32 dollars per day. Even if you live in a middle-income country, meaning that the average income is on level 2 like Mexico for example, you yourself probably live on level 4 and your life is probably similar in important ways to people living on level 4 in San Francisco, Stockholm, Rio, Cape Town and Beijing.” 

The 2019 Statistics South Africa report entitled Inequality Trends in SA; a multidimensional diagnostic offers evidence that more than half the country’s household expenditure is shelled out by the richest 10% of our population. Such South Africans are relatively small in number but the concentration of wealth within this group means that their economic influence is significant. Until recently this group spent considerable sums on cartoon-flavoured cuisine. 

And then came Covid-19. In the UK The Brand Nursery conducted online research in early June 2020 which revealed that consumer attitudes towards and experience of supermarket shopping has changed since the crisis began. Eighty-nine percent of shoppers reported thinking more carefully about what to shop for. Sixty-one percent said that they were using a list when they shop. Eighty-five percent stated that they were making fewer impulse acquisitions and that health and value for money were now the main motivations behind purchasing patterns.

For the past few months, all over the world, only those with absolutely no child care support have been shopping with their progeny in tow. There is some quantitative and masses of qualitative, anecdotal evidence to suggest that parents who shop without children spend their money differently to those shopping en famille. Prior to the pandemic, research organisation GenerationWhy undertook a survey which found that only 27% of parents who entered a store with a shopping list and a child stuck to that list as compared to 40% of parents who shopped solo. 

Rustenburg based dietician and functional medicine practitioner Mpho Tshukudu observes that: “My patients tell me that they are much more motivated than before to shop with a view to maximum health. They are all leaving their kids at home and finding that sensible, health-focused shopping is much simpler as a result. 

“They report that they are doing much less impulse buying and almost no casual takeout consumption. Because they are afraid of infection they are doing much more careful planning of a weekly shop before they head out. This is encouraging them to think about the ingredients they buy and the way that they use them. They also appear to be wasting less – many patients report significantly cut down on the amount of food they are throwing out. What all this tells me is that they are being more mindful in the way that they do their shopping and the way that they subsequently eat.”

Tshukudu’s testimony goes a long way to explaining why there are currently piles of unsold and heavily discounted Paw Patrol products in my local supermarket. It seems likely that when adults shop without children they tend to buy far less (if any) cartoon-character cuisine. I know this to be true in my own shopping trolley. A phone-around of my friends suggests that not only have our children not complained about new purchasing patterns but they haven’t really noticed. Out of sight is out of mind. Especially when it comes to a desire for puppy-infused popcorn sprinkles. DM/TGIFood