For Melissa Wardy (and others who take the time to call out childhood sexualization and sexual objectification): Here’s a fun game to play while reading your many comments and emails.
Larger PDF version, too.
I’m visualizing a series of Bingo boards by blog topic: Junk food marketing, in-school advertising, gendered toys, etc. Interested, Mattel?
Inspired by Lauredhel’s Anti-Feminist Bingo.
Now that we’ve covered some great ideas for non-commercialized kids’ birthday parties, I have some suggestions for non-commercialized tee shirts. For gifts — or for your own kids.
I love, love, love this design from Princess Free Zone. More awesome styles available.
Pigtail Pals has a line of new designs, including my favorite:
Better image and more shirts from Pigtail Pals.
I also like this particular shirt from 7Wonderlicious.
Who makes your favorite tee shirts?
Most people who disagree with me and my quest for more regulation on marketing to kids invoke the nanny state argument: Parents, not the state or federal government, are responsible for what their children see/do/buy.
To me, it’s not so much nanny state v. marketing to kids, but more, who is allowed to reach my kids? To teach them? As many would not like the government interfering in our family’s life, I don’t want corporations interfering. And make no mistake, that is exactly what corporate advertising directed at kids is meant to do: Interfere with parenting.
Janice D’Arcy writes about marketing to kids on social networks for the Washington Post:
It cites several new media strategies, such as a McDonalds text messaging campaign, Mountain Dew and Lucky Charms campaigns that ask fans to create their own promotional videos, thus turning marketees into unpaid marketers. My favorite example is of the KFC campaign that embedded a high-pitched sound into advertisements which most adults cannot hear.
If you don’t want the government texting your children, or convincing them to create pro-liberal/conservative videos, or embedding sounds that parents cannot hear into messaging to reach your kids without your consent — why is it okay for corporations to do so?
When do we draw the line?
One sure way to gage the progress in the fight against marketing to children is to see what articles and blog posts come across our RSS feed. Here’s what we’ve seen in just the last couple weeks:
Facebook Wants Children — Yours — to Boost Ad Sales [BNET]
Food Makers Won’t Leave Your Kids Alone [Rodale.com]
Marketing Junk Food To Kids Is Evil [Care2]
Marketing to Tweens – making our kids grow up too fast [NJ.com]
Movies still sell smoking to our kids [WLTribune.com]
Are Advergames Fair Game for Kids? [Brand Channel]
Curbing Junk Food Marketing to Children [Eat Drink Better]
Time to crack down on child-focused ads [SFGate.com]
Is McDonald’s Betraying Our Kids By Barraging Them With Junk Food Ads? [Huffington Post*]
Children’s Internet Games — Health and Obesity [Patch.com]
McDonald’s aggressively markets to kids [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Maybe Trix aren’t for Kids [insideawake]
Kid-baiting ads have gone too far [Salon]
Food, Advertising Reps Blast Proposed Guidelines for Marketing to Kids [Fox News]
*We have a no link policy for the Huffington Post. This is why. [video]
Nothing chaps my hide as much as the Dove campaign for real beauty/girls’ self-esteem/what/ever.
I know this doesn’t make me popular among the #dovedifference crowd. Or with the many brand ambassadors on Dove’s payroll.
But I can’t help it.
It’s kind of like the Mattel-Monster High/Kind Campaign debacle: Competing interests represented by two entities working together.
See, Unilever makes Dove products. And Unilever makes Axe products.
(And don’t forget the skin-whitening cremes marketed in Asia. And the diet aids — because you’re too fat — that don’t work.)
I think I’ve said pretty much all I can on the topic (see the first blog post I ever wrote and Dove’s successful marketing cycle, guaranteed: Advertise products, repair damage to girls’ self-esteem. Repeat and Girls, pay no attention to the naked supermodel sitting next to you, or, Dove’s at it again).
But now, they’ve created a Facebook app for Tunisian men:
And they’ve got a new #dovedifference campaign.
Imagine a world where every girl grows up with the self-esteem she needs to reach her full potential, and where every woman enjoys feeling confident in her own beauty. Imagine the world of possibilities we can open up by helping to build self-esteem in the people we love most.
I’m trying, Dove, I’m trying. But your boss is making it hard.
