The overwhelming majority of parents want to help their children educationally, and also believe that others know more about educating children and teenagers than they do.

How the parent perceives his/her role

For most parents, bringing up children is a matter of pleasure and pain - we adore them and they drive us mad.

If getting the child to go to bed at the right time, not stay out beyond a certain hour, not mix with undesirables and so on, is all too much (as it is for most parents) then trying to encourage harder study and a greater seriousness at school is beyond possibility.

What's more, the parent can feel that the school is not fully doing its job, since schools mostly still do (in the eyes of the parents) treat all children as the same, and this child, quite obviously, is very different.

And yet most parents do want to help their child educationally - so any suggestion that product x really will help the child (especially if it is perceived as good by the child and so is not another activity that the parent has to do) so much the better.

How the parent perceives advertisers

Because the parent starts from the premise that the child could do better, the advertiser is in a good position - these people want products that will boost their children's grades.  The only worry is whether or not the parent will need to spend a lot of time with the children doing whatever it is you sell.  Which is why the notion of pills or fish-oil or anything else that requires no work but gives better results has always been welcome..

How the parent can be contacted

You can reach parents through websites (our own, www.schools.co.uk is one example) through parenting magazines, or via the school.  For details of how to reach the child via the school see our paper on the subject which available at a small cost from our on-line shop.  

The resultant voice

The resultant voice should be calm, authoratative, clear - rather like a serious but kind and understanding headteacher. The message is certainly not "buy today and get it at half price" but instead it should be "there's nothing too much wrong here, just a bit of negative feeling, but that is very common among youngsters of this age.  I certainly don't think there will be any difficulty raising the grades - if we just work through this plan, then I think you'll find everything will be ok."

My feeling is that any attempt to sell a "one size fits all" approach reduces the impact, since this is what the parent feels is wrong with what is on offer at the school.