Scholastic Ceases In-School Corporate Propaganda Program

Way to go Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood! After more than 55,000 people signed a petition through Change.org last May, Scholastic has just announced that it will limit its “InSchool Marketing” program so that school kids are less subjected to corporate marketing propaganda via their classroom materials.

The black mark on Scholastic’s image began with coal, a lesson packet paid for by the American Coal Foundation, which contained all kinds of information about benefits of coal - but none of the nasty stuff like toxic waste and greenhouse gases. Oops.

So now Scholastic is on the retreat. According to an article in this week’s New York Times, “in addition to the coal curriculum, Scholastic distributed a program stressing the environmental wrongs of plastic water bottles, sponsored by Brita, which sells water filters. It also had a $3 million Microsoft campaign in which schools could earn points toward prizes for each Microsoft search, as well as a program featuring Playmobil’s small plastic figures. Those programs have ended, according to Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman — and last week, after a reporter inquired about them, all traces of them were removed from the Scholastic Web site, as other programs, sponsored by Disney, Nestlé and Shell, already had been.”

Cool! Gotta love what can happen when parents speak out. As for me, I'm not really sure why corporate marketing has any place in school curriculum in the first place, but maybe that's just me.

Scholastic's Book Fair Flak

Has Scholastic gone too far? Or are parents and teachers naive to think that kids will actually purchase what is good for them (i.e. 'real' books)? Or, perhaps, is this part of a much larger and sinister plot on behalf of all kids marketers to get kids to buy more and more and more licensed crap-- oops I mean creative merchandise?

Check out this week's press release from the CCFC:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - May 19 - “Stop enlisting teachers to sell toys, make-up, and brands to students through book clubs.” That’s what more than 1,200 teachers said in a letter the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sent to Scholastic, Inc., the world’s largest educational publishing company. CCFC sent the letter, signed exclusively by teachers, after a review of Scholastic’s 2008 elementary and middle school Book Club flyers found that one-third of the items for sale were either not books, like the M&M Kart Racing Wii videogame, or were books packaged with other products, such as lip gloss and jewelry.

I attended my first Scholastic Book Fair this fall and I have to agree... it did feel like the licensed merchandise was taking center stage, and as a parent I was completely put off. Then again, if you give a kid $5, what are they going to choose? This year's Caldecot winner, or something they already recognize and like?

Let me know what you think.

Butting in on the Burger King-SpongeBob ad campaign debate

In case you missed it, Burger King and SpongeBob have stirred up a little controversy over their latest co-branded TV commercial promoting the 99-cent Kids Meals (and square butts, apparently.) Before I tell you what I think, I'll get you up to speed on what everyone else thinks:

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is issuing a "Spongebob and Sexualization Don't Mix" campaign to remove the ads. "It’s bad enough when companies use a beloved media character like SpongeBob to promote junk food to children, but it’s utterly reprehensible when that character simultaneously promotes objectified, sexualized images of women,” said CCFC director Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist at the Judge Baker Children's Center.

According to the Washington Post, Burger King and Nickelodeon have issued the following statements:

"The 99-cent BK Kids Meal is a value-based offer aimed at adults and requires an adult BK Value Meal purchase. This value offering enables the entire family to enjoy an affordable quality meal. As with all Burger King adult advertising campaigns, the SpongeBob commercial
featuring Sir Mix-A-Lot's famous song airs only during shows targeting adult audiences, and with the King and a popular '90s rapper as the headliners, is meant to appeal to the adults who take their families to Burger King restaurants for good food and entertainment. This commercial is intended to show that even adults can have fun, laugh and be silly with entertainment genres -- such as rap and pop culture icons -- that have become part of everyday life. We also developed a second, completely different SpongeBob advertising campaign for kids, which is currently airing on kid-targeted programming."

Nickelodeon issued a similar statement:

"The Burger King ad is intended to be an adult-targeted and humorous take on the SpongeBob character's iconic "square" pants set to a famous pop song from the '90s. It is running on adult-targeted networks. This year marks SpongeBob SquarePants' landmark 10th anniversary, and with a monthly adult viewership of 45 million people above the age of 18, the intention was to offer a funny and playful take on the character for that audience."

Okay... so what do we have here? An adult targeted ad that is promoting what, exactly-- kids meals? Square butts? A really old (albeit catchy) Sir Mix A Lot song? As a feminist I kind of get the CCFC's point about the "objectified, sexualized" images of women, but fail to see how the butt shaking damages kids in any way, at least no more than say, Madagascar's "I like to Move it Move It." And then we have the canned BK/Nickelodeon response about the adult targeting. Which would make sense if... they weren't using the kid-targeted Kids Meal and the popular kids brand SpongeBob as the major themes of the ad. Never mind that the ad ran on "adult air time." It's all over YouTube now. And then there's the question of the big/square butts... which is supposed to make us want to... eat burgers? Or watch more SpongeBob?

Even if you can for a minute, set aside all of the ifs, ands and/or but(t)s --I still fail to see how this campaign promotes either brand.