Tobacco companies will have a tougher time with their cradle-to-grave marketing strategies thanks to new regulations that go into effect today. Parts of the new regulations focus on stemming big tobacco’s efforts to hook kids.

So today I’m thrilled to announce that I will be working with Ramsey Tobacco Coalition to help educate parents and the public about tobacco marketing and children. Their mission: Reducing youth exposure to tobacco influences. That’s marketing, folks. I’ll be posting on their Facebook page and will be tweeting at @RamseyTobacco. This fall I’ll also be educating parents about the marketing techniques that tobacco companies use to get children hooked on nicotine.

For those who know me, the elephant in the room here is my own history of smoking. When I began writing about marketing and advertising directed at children in my first blog, and even when I started Parents for Ethical Marketing, I was a smoker. I never smoked in front of my kids — a delusional caveat that allowed me to continue without guilt — but I couldn’t address the issue of kids and tobacco marketing in my work, because I was a smoker.

My path to quitting was long and winding. And full of potholes and construction zones. It was a tough battle. Several things came together around the same time so that I finally had the determination to survive the nicotine cravings:

– a few simple words from Spotty one evening at Drinking Liberally;

– reading Jean Kilbourne’s Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel (truly a light bulb moment and highly recommended for women who want to quit);

– the introduction of Pink Camel No. 9 cigarettes (and a friend pointing out that my dollars supported such marketing nonsense);

– and, although it pains me to admit this: Minnesota’s statewide smoking ban.

I quit almost three years ago; I still have bad days.

And I never, ever want my daughters to start smoking. So, to big tobacco marketers: We’ve got your number. Stay away from our kids.

Here’s more on the St. Paul students from Ramsey Tobacco Coalition who were recently honored as Youth Advocates of the Year from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

Seems Disney/ABC continues its Jekyll/Hyde relationship with its Miley Cyrus property. And here’s a second background post describing my issues with Disney. Originally published April, 2008.

The blogosphere is full of discussions about Miley Cyrus and her photos in Vanity Fair. I’m surprised by how many writers find nothing wrong with the photo — but then, they didn’t attend a conference on the sexualization of children recently.

With that in mind, here’s some worth reading: At Girl Media Maven, Nancy Gruver has a great discussion going in the comments of Who’s the Grown Up Here? and a follow-up post where she discusses what all these sexualized images of girls in the media are doing to our girls. And Blue Milk has some terrific visuals to help explain why some of us have been speaking out on this for a while.

This is the kind of conversation I’m hesitant to join, because I feel so bad for this 15-year-old girl, heart of an entertainment franchise, and the life she has ahead of her.

But, Corporate Babysitter that I am, I have to say that there’s one thing missing from this conversation: Disney. Disney owns Miley Cyrus (as lifestyle brand Hannah Montana) to the tune of one billion dollars.

Now, Disney seems to be upset by the photos:

A Disney spokeswoman, Patti McTeague, faulted Vanity Fair for the photo. “Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines,” she said.

Emphasis mine. Disney would know something about creating situations to manipulate kids in order to sell something.

After all, the Disney Princess machine alone is worth four billion dollars (see Disney Reaches to the Crib to Extend Princess Magic, Wall Street Journal).

Disney is arguably the greatest marketed brand ever.

And for their part in the creation of the Miley Cyrus who appears in Vanity Fair, they should not feign indignation. They should be ashamed.

Today begins a little background on my relationship with Disney. This post was originally published in November, 2007.

Footnoted’s post on Disney sprawl (among other things) unfortunately brought back some painful memories of an ill-fated trip to Disney World.

I was working for a for-profit university and our task was to fly to Disney World to investigate the possibility of hosting a student event there. Even though I’m pretty anti-Disney, I’m not, say, a Miss Trunchbull, so I used the free ticket there as an excuse to take my then-seven-year-old daughter.

She was thrilled, of course, but had to endure a day and a half of meetings with grown-ups.

I cannot even begin to describe the idiocracy of those meetings.

And the sales guys.

Since we would be bringing quite a large group of attendees, they were willing to bend over backwards for us: Shrink-wrapping the Disney buses with our logo, adding desks to about 300 of their guest rooms, and concealing the life-sized fake-town backdrop at the “extreme stunt show” on a backlot of Disney-MGM Studios.

When they took us to lunch, it was “on the mouse.” If I heard Well, that’s the Disney difference! one more time, I was going to throw up.

Anyway, my favorite moment was when one of the sales guys leaned down to my daughter:

Sales guy: So, who’s your favorite Disney Princess, honey?
Daughter: Umm . . . (looks frantically at her mother) . . . I don’t know.
Sales guy: Oh, it’s so hard to choose just one, isn’t it?
Me: No, that’s not it. She doesn’t know who you are talking about.
Sales guy:

Today Disney spends four billion dollars marketing Disney princesses to girls. And babies. And brides. And everyone else. Amazon.com lists no fewer than 7,806 Disney Princess “products.”

My daughter and I stayed an extra day at Disney World (it rained). Disney did not get that event contract with us. And I can guarantee that I’ll never set foot in Disney World again.

by Susan Linn, Ed.D., May 2010 CCFC News

I know I’m not alone in my inability to stop thinking about that oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes it’s foremost in my thoughts, but often it’s more in the background, like chronic anxiety, or some dull but persistent toothache. And, as we go about our daily work at CCFC, I’m thinking more than ever about sustainability and its links to our mission of reclaiming childhood from corporate marketers.  We can’t achieve a sustainable society without curbing consumption.

Lifetime consumer habits begin in childhood. That’s one big reason why children are targeted so intensely with marketing and why it needs to stop. As Josh Golin and I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post on Earth Day last year, “Marketing doesn’t just sell children individual products.  Its dominant message is that consumption is the path to happiness and self-fulfillment.” Marketers sell consumption, not just as a lifestyle, but as the lifestyle. Limiting children’s exposure to corporate marketing allows them the time and space to learn to take their pleasure in other people, nature, and their own creative play, rather than relying for satisfaction on the things that corporations sell. Children deserve a commercial-free childhood, and the earth deserves it as well.

So, while what may be the worst un-natural environmental disaster of all time unfolds, I am reminded that the commercialization of childhood affects so much more than families currently raising children.  The primacy of marketplace values — and instilling those values into the next generation — imperils everyone. It’s true that children benefit immediately and directly when we limit their exposure to commercial marketing.  But the impact is so much broader. Allowing kids to grow up free from bombardment by marketing messages is our best chance to nurture adults who recognize the value of preserving, rather than exploiting, environmental riches-who define themselves more as stewards than consumers. By working for the rights of children to grow up-and the freedom for parents to raise them-without being undermined by commercialism, CCFC promotes a more sustainable world.