The economy. The elections. This may not seem like the best time to start a fundraising campaign.

It certainly doesn’t feel like a good time to ask people for money.

But take a moment to consider this: While families across the country are tightening their belts, corporate marketers continue to manipulate children. Kids are still being told that in order to be happy, or popular, or even content, they must own the right things.

They’re told they need the right clothes. The right toys. The right books. Food and shampoo and school supplies adorned with particular characters. They’re told they must watch the right television programs and play the right computer games, which exist to sell them more of the same.

And now, like it or not, the biggest shopping — and advertising — season is upon us.

So when would be abetter time to help parents cope with the never-ending battle against corporate marketing?

I’ve been really lucky in that I’ve been able to take Parents for Ethical Marketing (PEM) this far without outside funding. In a little less than a year, more than 170 people have joined and we’ve had more than 19,000 visitors to the website. PEM’s been mentioned in the New York Times. Twice. And I’ve been a guest on radio talk shows and Internet podcasts – most recently on The Guardian’s Tech Weekly. (Read more about what PEM does.)

It’s been a good year, but now it’s time for PEM’s influence to grow.  We’d like more members. We’d like more blog readers. We’d like to take our message directly to parents (in fact, I’m speaking to my first parent group in a couple weeks). Eventually, I’d like to see free workshops provided to parents in schools, churches, and neighborhood gathering places all over the county.

Because parents need know exactly how corporate marketing affects their families.

Only then can we take the steps needed to persuade corporations to adopt responsible marketing standards and practices that sustain the health of children and families. 

That’s our mission. And by donating to Parents for Ethical Marketing, you’ll help.

PEM is proud to be a member of the recently relaunched Change.org (see last week’s Newsweek article Blogging Like the World Depended on It and this article at the Chronicle of Philanthropy). Your tax-deductible donation will be processed through Change.org’s secure server.

THANK YOU!

A friend in Boston alerted me to the best birthday present ever: CosmoGirl magazine folds.

Newsweek reviews The Porning of America, a book inspired by a father’s realization that “porn culture and I were in a death match for my daughter’s soul.”

He had battled the Bratz empire.

It’s too early to know exactly how kids who grow up in this hypersexualized environment will be affected in the long term. But Scott and his coauthor say it’s not too soon—or too prudish—to sound the alarm, and to look critically at the sexualized culture we’re exposed to every day. . . . [P]orn themes have gone from adult entertainment to prime time, seeping into nearly every aspect of popular culture. Sarracino and Scott define “porning” as the way advertising and society in general have borrowed from the ideas and characteristics central to most American pornography: sex as commodity, sexuality as overt, narrow views of women and male-female relationships, bad girls and dirty boys, domination and submission.

This isn’t about sex. It’s not about morality or sexual freedom or abstinence or teen pregnancy or any polarizing belief or issue.

It’s about kids’ mental and physical health. 

Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a compelling report that described the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put. Once they subscribe to that belief, say some psychologists, those girls begin to self-objectify—with consequences ranging from cognitive problems to depression and eating disorders. 

Fact sheet on childhood sexualization from CCFC. 

Emphasis mine. H/T Whole Kids Project.

Poor Red Bull can’t catch a break in Minneapolis.

Last summer the energy-drink maker upset some commuting bicyclists and other Minneapolis residents with their giant cube photo exhibit on the Stone Arch Bridge. Some people had a hard time navigating the bridge, others objected to the blatant advertising on public property.

And now this: According to Minneapolis Roosevelt High Principal Bruce Gilman, on October 1, three Red Bull cars (”with the cans on top”) parked on 40th Avenue across from the school while the busses were dropping off students.

The mission? Free Red Bull to anyone willing to cross the street to get it.

The Red Bull employees, members of the elite, seemingly no-boys-allowed Wiiings Team (yes, Wiiings) had already been asked to leave the same area the previous week.

Why wouldn’t the school accept Red Bull’s generousity? For one thing, Gilman said, the Wiiings Team car fleet was blocking traffic, including a school bus. Students were crossing the street and standing in traffic to get free Red Bull samples. And because no Minneapolis school sells or allows students to have beverages other than water or fruit juice on campus, Red Bull isn’t even allowed inside the school.

Gilman approached the team members and asked them to move along. They refused.

“I have never seen such obnoxious behavior,” Gilman said.

Gilman spoke with Roosevelt’s on-duty police officer, Mark Klukow, about getting the vehicles out of the way of traffic. Officer Klukow’s knowledge of Minnesota statutes — beyond the usual traffic laws – provided the perfect solution.

Officer Kluckow said it’s illegal to hand anything out to kids near school property as they are getting on or off a bus.

By this time classes were in session at Roosevelt and the the Red Bull contingent had moved on to their next captive audience at Minneapolis South High. Officer Klukow caught up with them there.

Citations were issued all around.

Gilman called this a happy ending.

And that’s no bull.

Photo courtesy yoppi

Firm perfects smart marketing approach to kids and parents explains how the really smart marketers do it.

To begin, create a product line that isn’t needed or necessary: Skin care for children.

. . . a good niche product geared to a relatively new market with few competitors.

It’s a new market because this company (mysteriously not named in the article) made it up. They invented the market. Thy have no competitors because the Unnamed Company made it up first.

And now, the strategy. The Unnamed Company:

. . . speaks on a kid-appropriate level by using “fun” adjectives such as “friendly,” “sunny,” “happy,” and “funny” to describe the products . . . .

. . . appeals to kids’ sensibilities by packaging the products in bright colors and designs . . . .

. . . added entertainment value to the product line with a CD of silly rhymes and songs to serve as mnemonic devices for developing good skin-care habits.

. . . [created a website], providing a forum for learning more about the ingredients, including the “toxic bad guys” found in everyday products. . . . [and] printable checklists for kids to earn stars for performing their skin-care regimen.

Now that’s how you get kids to ask for and parents to buy a completely unnecessary product.

Here’s another one: How do you get a Mom to buy a knife for her toddler?

They strategically placed the words [Kiddy and cutlery] in discrete places where Moms aren’t likely to see them seeing as they are concentrating on getting out of the store before their kid has a melt down.  

Katherine has a point: Even if it’s not sharp, why would Gerber even consider selling a little toddler knife?

Gerber and Kellogg’s must have attended the same product development workshop: Create and Market Products to Confuse Small Children for Fun and Profit.

Blogger and neighborhood activist Ed Kohler passed along this gem to me:

Really, Kellogg’s? Lego fruit snacks for children that look exactly like the Legos with the CHOKING HAZARD NOT FOR CHILDREN UNDER THREE on every box?

Influencial Marketing Blog:

Every once in a while, you see an example of a campaign or product that demonstrates a little too clearly the negative side of marketing and makes you just a little embarassed about your career choice.

Kellogg’s was one of the first companies to join the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. The participants have pledged to alter how they market food to kids — including only advertising foods that meet certain nutritional guidelines and cutting back on the licensed characters.

Kellogg’s says it has to honor its existing contracts, so I’m guessing that the Legos’ contract is one of those that goes into 2009. It looks like they shouldn’t be advertising Lego Fun Snacks to kids at all, since its 13 grams of sugar per serving violates their 12-gram limit.

Unfortunately, the pledge doesn’t extend to marketing really stupid products. Kellogg’s, exactly how do you defend this one?

Our friends at Healthy Legacy and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy have just published A Guide to Safer Children’s Products to help parents avoid purchasing products with harmful synthetic chemicals commonly used in children’s products.

The guide provides a list of safer children’s products ranging from baby bottles, utensils, pacifiers, teethers, and more.

And they’ve included a wallet-sized cutout so you’re not stumped at the store.

The IATP has also updated The Smart Plastics Guide to include the latest science and marketplace developments to help consumers make wise choices about the types of plastics they use.