Back to school with PepsiCo stealth marketing?

I recently blogged about questions regarding how PepsiCo's voluntary beverage guidelines, announced in March, would be implemented in schools given that contracts are made at the local level. Now with back-to-school in full swing, I have even more questions about how PepsiCo may be using stealth marketing techniques to gain access to that coveted captive K-12 audience.

Today, the company announced a new program it calls Score for Your School. From the press release:

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Today is the First Day of Kmart's Marketing Assault on Children

Later today, Alloy Media + Marketing, will launch First Day, its latest web series for children and teens on the Internet channel AlloyTV. An Alloy press release suggests the show will have it all – if by all you mean the full gamut of troubling trends in youth marketing.

Because First Day will air on the web instead of a traditional television channel, the FCC’s rules that dictate strict separation of commercial content and programming matter do not apply. That means that, unlike children’s television shows, First Day can feature product placement. That’s where Kmart comes in. Not only will the characters wear Kmart’s back-to-school fashions (Dream Out Loud by Selena Gomez, Rebecca Bonbon and Bongo), but Kmart actually helped create the script for First Day, so expect the clothes to play a prominent role in the show’s narrative. And if you’re creating a Kmart infomercial, why stop there?

First Day will also feature a unique retail component in each episode. Kmart will "hotspot" its fashions throughout the series, enabling viewers to buy the inspired looks worn by the lead characters by means of a direct link to the products on the Kmart website.

When they click through to the Kmart website, what will they find? Perhaps images like these that are being used to promote the same Bongo line in Seventeen magazine and Teen Vogue, two publications whose readers skew younger than their titles imply:



Or this ad that touts Bongo’s junior line for “back to school” at Kmart’s parent company, Sears:



It’s as if Kmart designed their back-to-school campaign using the exploitative marketers’ handbook. Use sex to sell tween girls on clothes. Create “branded entertainment” so that children won’t realize they’re really watching ads. Use interactive technology so that kids can click right from the “program” they’re watching to the checkout line. Add a viral component so that children’s friendships are commercialized; Kmart is offering applications for kids to upload to their phones so they can tweet their purchases to their friends.

And of course, promote your brand in schools. Kmart is also advertising its fall fashions on Alloy’s controversial in-school television network, Channel One. For students in the 8,000 schools with Channel One, viewing Kmart’s ads will be a compulsory part of the school day. That’s right – Kmart will be using class time paid for by your tax dollars to promote its clothing to a captive audience of students.

Kmart clearly believes that its provocative marketing strategy will result in more sales, but I’m not so sure. There are a growing number of parents who are saying, “if you want my business, treat me and my children with respect.” That’s a lesson that Kmart clearly hasn’t learned. Maybe we need to teach them that this fall.


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Commercialism Corner

Commercialism Corner: Your one-stop shop for quick summaries and links to all the latest news about the commercialization of childhood.

A Source of Solace, Not Ad Revenue – This Miami Herald article, quoting CCFC's Susan Linn, criticizes a proposal in Miami to allow advertising in public parks.  The author concludes, “To accommodate a plethora of commercial imagery in county parks is to fill them with visual pollution. The premise of the commercial culture is that buying things will make us happier. But no purchase is enough to achieve happiness. Instead, an encounter with nature—without an assault by this culture of consumerism—offers life's best gift.” http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/28/1796085/a-source-of-solace-not-ad-revenue.html

Kids in Their Sights – Canada’s Financial Post details the global political struggle to limit junk food ads aimed at kids in an effort to curb childhood obesity.  While child health experts point out that the failure of ad industry self-regulation proves that “the fox does a really poor job of guarding the henhouse,” advertising execs claim that the parent has the purchasing power and is the “CEO of the household.”  Meanwhile, childhood obesity rates continue to soar, and a new study on global food advertising to children finds that 67% of food ads targeted at kids in 11 countries are for unhealthy food. http://www.financialpost.com/news/Kids+their+sights/3452015/story.html

Don't Touch That Disney Channel -- and Many Other Things, in Blogger Experiment – The St. Petersburg Times spotlight’s Lisa “The Corporate Babysitter” Ray’s family’s year without Disney. http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/dont-touch-that-disney-channel-mdash-and-many-other-things-in-blogger/1117944

Crest and Oral-B Try to Make Dental Care Cool – The two companies launch a marketing campaign aimed at kids as young as 8, which includes a phone app called “Yuck Mouth” to teach kids about healthy oral care…oh yes, and to sell them on Crest and Oral-B products. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/20/2971664/crest-and-oral-b-introduce-pro.html

Kids are Influencing $10.9 Billion in Videogame Purchases; Over 90% of Kids are Playing Games Online – Children influence half of all video game purchases—to the tune of $10.9 billion—according to the new M2 market research study. http://www.gamingbusinessreview.com/m2kidsandgamesreport.htm

Popular Demand: Teenage Texting and More – New stats reported in the New York Times show that the number of teens visiting social networks from their mobile phones increased 81% this year.  (It’s no wonder that marketers are increasingly targeting teens and pre-teens with cell phone advertising.)  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/08/23/business/media/23mostwanted.html

FCC Appeals Fox Indecency Ruling – FCC, with the support of the Justice Department, appeals Second Circuit’s Court of Appeals decision on its indecency (“fleeting expletives”) enforcement policy, claiming that the court’s decision would make creating a new enforcement policy a “seeming impossibility.”  http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/456402-FCC_Appeals_Fox_Indecency_Ruling.php

The Hub Adds New Pop Culture Series “Hubworld” to Network’s Original Programming Line Up – The new show “Hubworld” is described as “a pop culture magazine show that infuses what's happening in the life of everyday kids with what's happening on The Hub television network,” the new children’s network by Hasbro and Discovery.  The show will feature highlights of Hub shows and segments “keeping up with what’s going on in the world of entertainment, music, sports and much more.”  Might the “much more” category include new Hasbro toys and licensed merchandise by any chance? http://www.pr-inside.com/the-hub-adds-new-pop-culture-r2080991.htm

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime – Studies show that being constantly hooked into technology deprives the brain of downtime needed to process and remember information, which is essential to learning.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html Read more!

Dethroning the Disney Princesses

According to newspaper reports, researchers are exploring links between a girlhood characterized by “princess culture,” and womanhood fraught with narcissism, materialism, and overspending. No adult behavior can be explained solely by one thing—human beings are complicated creatures. But these researchers are on to something. We pass cultural values on through the stories we tell and the toys we give to children. The messages they take away from what they see, hear, and experience contribute to their understanding of the world and how it works.

Much has been written about the negative impact of impossibly built fashion dolls on how girls conceptualize beauty, and how they feel about their bodies. For many parents, the Disney Princesses seem like the lesser of several evils—perhaps they aren’t quite as in-your-face sexualized as the Bratz, or My Scene Barbies, or the new Monster High Dolls. But, in addition to promoting the dream that irks so many feminists—someday a prince will come and solve all of my problems—Disney Princess films, sequels, prequels and products subject little girls to clear messages about class and entitlement.

In The Case for Make Believe, I relate the following conversation with a four year old Disney princess aficionado:

“What’s a princess?” I asked Abigail. “A rich girl,” she answered promptly, “with a kingdom.” She was a bit fuzzy on exactly what a kingdom is, however. “It’s got lots of rooms,” she explained tentatively. Then her eyes grew big and round, sparkling with excitement. “And now there’s no food in it!” “Oh, no!” I groaned. “Yes!” she said with joyful urgency. “The servants have run out of ingredients!”

In the wonderful world of Disney, the female ideal is a rich girl living in a big house with lots of servants. And while the company has given the nod girls of color—Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, and Tiana—the crème de la crème of princesshood, the ones featured most prominently in the princess brand, are white: Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Snow White, and Aurora.

Truth be told, I love fairy tales. While my fondness for them sometimes rests uneasily on my social conscience (the themes may be deep and complex, but the characters are not), I understand why they have so much meaning for young children. Classic stories of perseverance rewarded, good triumphing over evil, and the weak overcoming the powerful are valuable for kids as they grapple with the immense cognitive, physical and emotional demands of growing up socialized. And our exploration of fairy tales doesn’t have to be limited to the Western European versions that are so popular in the United States. After all, the original Cinderella story is the Chinese Shen Teh—and there are magical tales handed down for centuries from all over the world. In their original forms they are often explorations of important themes universal to children—sibling rivalry, family discord, loss, and redemption. But in the Disney versions of fairy tales, the deeper themes get lost amid the talking teapots and adorable singing mice. The films are enjoyable and the do what Disney does best—create longing for a magical world where virtue is synonymous with beauty and ultimately rewarded by material wealth.

Back when a movie was mostly just a movie seen only in theaters, princess values didn’t necessarily permeate little girlhood. But with miniaturized screen technology and tens of thousands of princess products on the market, that’s no longer the case. It’s not just that children see the films repeatedly, so that the scripts are embedded in their brains. Their play about the films is constricted by the plethora of princess toys and accessories. In addition, the image of the princesses—plastered on sheets, wallpaper, toothbrushes, snacks, backpacks and pretty much everything under the sun—dominates children’s experience of the stories.

One reason that commercialization is so harmful for children is that marketers exploit and pervert normal developmental stages—in this case, gender identification—so that corporate messages dominate how a child’s world view is shaped. Children, naturally attracted to glitter and longing to be so much more more powerful, are sitting ducks for gendered marketing like the Disney’s Princess selling machine. A society that does not protect kids from being immersed in advertising is complicit in their exploitation and the harms caused by it. As the father of a tiny potential consuming princess fanatic laments, unless you move to the woods it’s just about impossible for little girls to avoid the world according to her majesties Cinderella, and Ariel et al.

So what’s a parent to do? Until and unless we change the culture, you can set some limits and at least keep your daughters from drowning in The Little Mermaid and other Princess paraphernalia. Here are just a few options:

For babies and toddlers: Avoid purposely exposing young children to screen-based entertainment, at least until they ask for it, and limit exposure after that. You can at least put off instilling the expectation that the Disney princesses are essential to a happy girlhood.

For preschoolers: You might choose to avoid the films altogether. But if you love them, and want to share them, go ahead—but do so with the understanding that you’re not going to let Disney dictate your child’s post-film experience. Encourage hands-on creative play free of branded products.

From preschool on: Surround your kids with books of multi-cultural stories, including folk and fairy tales. And make sure to include stories that defy stereotypes. If your daughters love frufru and want to play princess, then haunt thrift shops and the closets of friends and family for cast off finery. Keep talking with children about your values and how they are similar and different from the commercial values celebrated by Disney and other corporations with a corner on the kid market.

Oh, and one last thing. Join the movement to stop companies from targeting children directly with marketing. Gender stereotyping and materialistic values aren’t the only inevitable harms of a commercialized childhood.
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Commercialism Corner

Commercialism Corner: Your one-stop shop for quick summaries and links to all the latest news about the commercialization of childhood.

Digital Diversions Leave Teens, Parents Sleep-Deprived – New study shows that 80% of adolescents don’t get enough sleep, even though 90% of parents think they do. The study finds that “digital diversions,” like cell phones, are major factors of the sleep deprivation, which is supported by the finding that 4 out of 5 teens sleep with their mobile phones and wake up to respond to text messages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082305482.html

Princess Culture Turning Girls Into Overspending Narcissists – A commercial culture that tells girls they can be Disney princesses by purchasing products gives way to narcissistic adults and loads of credit card debt, say researchers. http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Princess+culture+turning+girls+into+overspending+narcissists/3403856/story.html

M2 Research Reports 90 Percent of 'Tweens' are Playing Games Online; Mobile and Social Media Use on the Rise Among Children – New market research finds 93% of so-called ‘tween’ boys and 91% of ‘tween’ girls play online games and calls this a “Sweet Spot” for advertisers. The research also finds that social networking sites are increasingly popular with youngsters, with boys 8-11 and girls 12-15 reporting Facebook (which is renowned for its lax privacy controls) as their favorite site. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/08/prweb4392494.htm

Want Your Kid to Get Ahead? Learn From the Gorillas – Free-Range Kids founder Lenore Skenazy, drawing from Susan Linn’s The Case for Make Believe, playfully describes the primal importance of children’s creative play—and the importance of battling its erosion by screen activities—for children’s healthy and happy development. http://www.parentdish.com/2010/08/24/want-your-kid-to-get-ahead-learn-from-the-gorillas/

The Summer Movie Marketing Report Card – Ad Age reviews and grades major film studios’summer movie marketing campaigns. Iron Man 2’s Paramount and Twilight’s Summit score well; apparently the marketing of these PG-13 movies to children (with, for example, tie-ins with Burger King Kids Meals) scores high in the marketing industry. http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=145495

New Law to Forbid Junk Food Ads on Estonian TV – A draft of a law that may be approved by the Estonian Parliament would ban junk food ads on children’s TV shows there. If the law passes, Estonia will join other EU countries that are enforcing limits on advertising for low nutrient foods aimed at children. http://www.estonianfreepress.com/2010/08/new-law-to-forbid-junk-food-ads-on-estonian-tv/

Volkswagen Drives TLC.com Family Travel Content – In an effort to market the Volkswagen Routan minivan, VW sponsors an original online series “The Great Getaway” with VW branding integral to the program. This KidScreen article concludes that more of this kind of branded content can be expected: “The partnership shows how content providers are creating custom platforms upon which advertisers can introduce new products and reach their target audience.” http://www.kidscreen.com/articles/news/20100818/tlc.html

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