Brands are always trying to get into the minds of consumers -- especially kids.

Buyology author Martin Lindstrom's new book Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use To Manipulate Our Minds And Persuade Us To Buy just hit the shelves, and it tells a startlingly detailed story of the lengths brands go to in order to get us hooked.

And it all starts at an alarmingly young age -- some even get started while you're still in the womb. From there, we're just bombarded with more and more messages.

Kids are aware of brands at a very early age. Lindstrom cites an SIS International Research survey that says that 53% of adults and 56% of teens used brands they vaguely remembered from their childhoods -- mostly food, drinks and household goods.

Consumer Knowledge Centre CEO Bryan Urbick says that the first word recognized (rather than articulated) is "McDonald's" or "Ronald," and the Journal of the American Medical Association says that two decades ago, kids were able to identify Joe Camel as much as Mickey Mouse.

And according to Wright Institute child psychologist Dr. Allen Kanner, by the time an American child is three, they can recognize an average of 100 brand logos. By age 10, they remember between 300 to 400 brands, according to a Nickelodeon study.

Children are obviously important for marketers, so it's no surprise that they devote billions of dollars to try to win them over -- but how far can they go without being intrusive, disruptive or downright offensive? Here are some shocking ways that brands try to manipulate their minds.