We’ve managed to stay away from Club Libby Lu because we avoid malls at all costs.

Which is not always easy. Remember, I live in Minneapolis, home of the MOST HUGEST AND COOLEST MALL IN THE UNIVERSE.

This hysterical post at Daddy Types (which I found via a scraper site, of all things) was written as a rebuttal to a comment from a Libby Lu employee on a previous post.

Daddy Types successfully counters the commenter’s argument that Club Libby Lu is really a saint-like retailer:

. . . Club libby Lu donated an insane amount to St. Jude’s cancer research hospital . . . [and] we have been supporting Girl scouts of America for years now.

This is a perfect example of the conundrum people face when a company touts their “good works” as a reason to continue buying their product.

After all, don’t we want to support companies that do good work?

Another example is Unilever:

Too many girls develop low self-esteem from hang-ups about looks. Consequently, many fail to reach their full potential later in life. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund is an agent of change to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty.

On the surface, bravo! However, a closer look reveals that Unilever still makes a profit from women who believe that their skin isn’t the right color and from men who believe that their sexual desires should be reserved for naughty supermodels. Neither of which seems to be inspiring our daughters with a “wider definition of beauty.”

And McDonald’s is asking kids to Bee Good to the Planet by making an “eco-pledge” for the environment. But doesn’t that Happy Meal still come with a useless piece of plastic that will most likely live forever in a landfill?

Responsible marketing is more that just another sales strategy. But these superficial campaigns work. Corporations count on the fact that no one will take the time to peek behind their curtain.

Next time a company brags about its social responsibility? Take a closer look.

Action: Support the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s initiative to Tell Unilever: It’s Time to Ax their Exploitative Marketing

Mom at Outside the (Toy) Box wrote a post about the ever-decreasing range of playtime choices for today’s little girls — specifically, do you like Barbie or Disney Princesses? And while the “character” choice may be limited, the number of products available has exploded: she lists no less than forty Princess-themed items you can’t live without (before she stops, exhausted).

I recently read that Disney plans to offer 2,000 licensed products in conjunction with High School Musical 2. That’s TWO THOUSAND. I sat my 10-year-old down to come up with a list of 2,000 possibilities. We couldn’t even get to 50 (of course, things like “musical eggs” didn’t even cross my mind).

And what’s wrong with that? asks Disney’s John Hardie:

What we do is very honest and direct. Children live in the same commercial world as the rest of us. We make TV shows and movies for kids to watch. What’s wrong with that? Imagine a world without Jungle Book or Finding Nemo. And what’s wrong with then having products which tie into that?

Well, since he asked:

Decreased attention span, obesity, intellectural passivity and inhibited imaginative play: seems that all those TV shows and videos may not actually be good for kids.

Choking hazards, lead contamination, and burn hazards: in their mad dash to produce more crap to sell, safety issues sometimes, just maybe, might be, well, overlooked. 

It’s time for the big corps to stop and ask themselves: by mass-producing these products and spending billions to make sure someone buys them, are we contributing to children’s health? And the well-being of American families?

originally published in a similar post at twoknives.net

But you’ll have to comment on this post.

Welcome to Corporate Babysitter. My name is Lisa Ray. I’m a parent and blogger. I live in Minneapolis with my husband and two daughters, ages 5 and 10.

I’m writing the Corporate Babysitter blog (and founded Parents for Ethical Marketing) to explore the issues around kids and consumerism. I’m hoping that together, we can encourage corporations to rethink the way they market to children.

Want to know the whole story? It’s here.

Please take a moment to look around the site. Let me know what you think. And thanks for stopping by.