Read: The Daniel Tiger doctrine

But just because some kids don’t see commercials doesn’t mean they’re never exposed to toy advertising. While some people understandably see the absence of toy commercials in many modern children’s lives as a welcome development, the truth is that advertisers have just found other—arguably sneakier and more omnipresent—ways to market to children.

Josh Golin, the executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood,told me that his job has actually become a lot harder in recent years. “Television commercials were only one part of the strategy,” he said.

For starters, kids are still bombarded with advertising that happens within the shows they watch. Children’s shows have long featured cute characters who are easily repurposed as stuffed animals or figurines, Golin noted, but in the past few decades, they’ve become especially common (think Peppa Pig and Dora the Explorer)—largely because merchandising opportunities are now baked into the concepts from the start, rather than developed after the fact. Building a broadcast-TV show around an existing product only became legal when the Reagan administration deregulated children’s TV in the ’80s, but since then, “it’s become an increasingly important part of [getting a show made],” Golin said. In many cases, toy companies are involved from day one: Paw Patrol, for example, was a concept the toy company Spin Master pitched to TV networks, eventually partnering with Nickelodeon. Whether kids watch LEGO’s Ninjago on television (with commercials) or Netflix (no commercials), it’s still a fairly transparent ad for toys. “It’s great that you’re cutting out the toy commercials,” Golin said. But often, “the show you’re watching is itself just a commercial for a toy.”

Additionally, the amount of time kids spend in front of screens today makes Golin suspect that they’re marketed to even more than Millennials or Gen X adults were as kids, although he notes that it’s difficult to quantify this. “From my standpoint, kids were watching too much TV 20 years ago. But the fact that screens now go with us everywhere means that you’re always available to marketers,” Golin said. He added that the average age at which kids get their own smartphone is now 10—so starting in fourth grade, kids are available to be marketed to on the school bus, in the lunch line, and anywhere else they might have free time or free hands.

On top of that, of course, there’s YouTube. Jill Murphy, the editor in chief of the nonprofit Common Sense Media, points out that it’s much harder for even cord-cutting parents to shield their kids from YouTube than it is to shield them from traditional TV. YouTube not only serves up advertisements, but also has unboxing videos, toy-review videos, beauty and morning-routine videos, and other seemingly homemade clips that feature young people using, talking about, and reviewing products. These videos enjoy outrageous popularity among kids and teens: Ryan’s World, a YouTube channel in which an 8-year-old boy reviews toys, has more than 23 million subscribers.