I mean, when we were kids, it was child actors peddling goods on TV, in movies, magazines, or whatever. Commercials, movies, shows... anything for kids was basically to sell merchandise after the fact. Remember video game magazines? Saturday morning cartoons? Unless you lived under a rock, had no TV, were permitted to see no movies, read no magazines, etc (I knew a few kids like this), your entire childhood was steeped in targeted commercialism.
Surely you realized this at some point. Which is why I have to ask: why this? The medium and format changed a bit, but little else.