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Parents for Ethical Marketing
is a young, grassroots organization of people concerned about the effects of corporate marketing practices directed at young children.

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News & Events

Virgin Mobile Pulls Back Racy Campaign

Decides it probably wasn't the best idea to encourage kids to strip on YouTube . . . no matter what the cause.

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Game publishers turning more to girl gamers

Think pink! And puppies! And princesses!

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Study Finds Materialism in Children and Adolescents Linked to Self-Esteem

From the Journal of Consumer Research

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Ads on children's social networking sites

Harmless child's play or virtual insanity?

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Pepsi and Coke to reform marketing efforts to kids (maybe)

Plenty of wiggle room under new guidelines.

Read More...

Archive for the ‘Disney Princess Watch’ Category

Disney Princess Watch: Mickey came to my third birthday party and I have the pictures to proove it

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Our Disney Princess Watch feature keeps you current with the newest, the most unusual, and the most inexplicable products featuring Disney Princesses and other Disney characters.

For your future Annie Leibovitz, Disney introduces the Disney Pix Jr. digital camera especially designed for the youngest photographers — your three-year-old.

camer2.jpg

WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

Don’t worry, little girls, there’s a Disney Princess version just for you!

Of course, no family memories are complete without proof that a Disney character was there: With the Disney Pix Jr., kids can place Disney characters into all of their photos. Imagine Mickey joining your family reunion! Or Minnie at your sister’s bat mitzvah!

Some “child advocates” question how a $60 camera contributes to a three-year-old’s learning and development; they obviously did not have the benefit of taking Rationalization 101 in marketing school:

“We saw kids wanting to take pictures with their parents’ $300 Sony cameras,” says Lisa Mancuso, vice president of marketing [at Fisher-Price]. “We filled a gaping need in the marketplace.”

Emphasis mine. The key word here is “gaping.”

Here’s an idea:

Make a camera using a small rectangular box or small animal cracker box. For the lens, glue a piece of felt, fabric, or cardboard on the front center of the box. You can even use a lid from a plastic milk container . . . .

~~~ 

Read The Princess Problem: There’s More Than One Way of Being Pretty

On being flexible, or, Introducing Disney Princess Watch

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Q:  What do you get when you schedule a dinner party during TV Turnoff Week?
A:  Two sick girls staying home for the day.

Parenting teaches you nothing if not flexibility. The dinner party will be canceled, we’ll see how the day goes with no TV (usually a treat when someone is sick), and the morning will not be spent writing a planned post.

Instead, I’d like to quickly introduce a new Corporate Babysitter feature: Disney Princess Watch.

The number of licensed character products coming out of Disney is fantastically ridiculous and someday, EVERYTHING YOU BUY WILL HAVE A DISNEY CHARACTER ON IT. Until then, Corporate Babysitter will keep you current with the newest, the most unusual, and the most inexplicable products featuring Disney Princesses and other Disney characters.

Today, the first Disney-branded refrigerated dairy beverage: Disney Little Einsteins Milk.

But as we know, Disney would NEVER imply that their refrigerated dairy beverage would help make your children smarter than, say, anyone else’s refrigerated dairy beverage. That is NOT what they are trying to imply with “Little Einsteins.” No. Of course not. They wouldn’t do that.

From the press release:

“Teaming with Disney provides the opportunity to create healthy products that kids will identify with, while enabling parents to provide a highly nutritional and great-tasting beverage that their children will want to drink,” said Sam Stremick, Director of Sales and Marketing for Stremicks Heritage Foods. “The new Little Einsteins milk line provides parents with an easy option for incorporating nutrients like calcium and DHA into their children’s diets to ensure optimal growth and development.”

Have you ever read such complete bull****? Really? You, Disney and Stremicks, are helping parents by slapping a Disney logo on a carton of milk?

What Mr. Stremick means is that since Disney has mastered the art of a) fooling parents with claims the Einstein products will make smarter babies and b) enticing children to nag for anything Disney, parents will feel okay about giving in to a wailing child in the grocery store screaming “I want Disney milk!”

Disney and Mr. Stremick, guess what? You’re not helping parents.

Read more on the CCFC Summit in my guest post at So Sioux Me.