Advertising: The nursery celebrities

There's a gaggle of girls on a night uptown in a white stretch. It's like karaoke celebrity. Then, next thing you know, they're on what appears to be the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. They're on a bit of a star trek. They're doing line dancing like S Club 7 girls, holding their toy microphones up. And they're learning all the hair and make-up and jewellery tricks you need to be a Pop Idol. A real Pop Idol.

They're learning all this from a cool new magazine, a sort of mini-partwork licensed from the great bundle of intellectual property rights we call the Pop Idol Corporation. Don't dream it, be it. Be it, just like S Club Juniors. But not at 12; more like six. There's a wicked sparkly scarf and a sort of jewellery box affair. There's pages about your faves Robbie and Gareth, and pages about your role models like Pink and Avril Lavigne. Especially if you're six.

This is the My Little Pony market de nos jours. And it's an inclusive career opportunity for the very young.

People like that Gillick woman, who kept a family of 10 children by candlelight and never allowed them to watch TV, used to say this sort of thing was killing childhood. Some said it was worse still. (Remember Mike Mansfield's Minipops of the early 1980s, where little girls in sequined boob-tubes sang grown-up songs on a dry-iced set?) They said it was unhealthy.

Whatever, celebrity culture's part of the under-eight market now, and you'll never get them back. The essentials of the job - dressing up, going to parties, posing for photographs - are universally compelling and absolutely accessible. And God knows we need celebrities. We're using them up at a truly appalling rate. Their average life expectancy is about nine months now. But they're vital to a modern experience economy, and we've got to do something about productivity or we'll fall behind. Which is why we should ignore whingeing critics and give praise to the Pop Idol people for helping us train the celebrities of tomorrow - girls with certificates for hair and make-up and attitude, just like a real Pop Idol.

Peter@sru.co.uk