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:

It’s not just parents who are concerned with the ethics of corporate marketing. Four St. Paul students have been named Youth Advocates of the Year by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The group, members of the Ramsey Tobacco Coalition, were honored last week in Washington, D.C.

When the students –  Brian Bell, Shanicee Dillon, Calitta Jones and Jeremiah Carter — discovered that stores in their neighborhood were selling candy cigarettes, bubble gum called “Big League Chew” and novelty lighters, they decided to do something about it. They met with St. Paul City Council Member Melvin Carter, who agreed to introduce an ordinance banning the products if the group helped: The students had to  conduct a community assessment of the problem, educate the other council members, and rally support for their presentation in the council chambers.

So they did. And as a result, the city council voted unanimously to ban the sale of candy “tobacco” products. St. Paul is the first city in the country to do so.

Since the ordinance went into effect, the youth have helped the city monitor stores for compliance and assisted in media and educational campaigns. The group currently is working to increase the tax rate for small cigars and to stop tobacco industry funding of nonprofit organizations that work with youth.

The Ramsey Tobacco Coalition works to reduce the harm caused by tobacco in Ramsey County. Members target youth access via tobacco-free school grounds policies, tobacco-free park policies, tobacco-free policies for clubs and youth-serving agencies and Ramsey County and St. Paul smoke-free workplace laws.

Recently we’ve seen an increase in impending government legislation created to protect children.

For example, the Healthy Media for Youth Act was recently introduced in Congress. The bill would create media literacy programs, promote research on the effect of media images on kids, and encourage the adoption of voluntary guidelines to promote healthier media images of girls and women. The bill was developed in collaboration with the Girl Scouts.

Next,  the Food and Drug Administration (with its newfound authority) has issued rules restricting tobacco industry marketing and sales to youth. Nice timing, considering that we just learned how the RJ Reynolds’ pink Camel No. 9 campaign targeted young teenage girls.

The rules, which take effect on June 22, will ban all remaining tobacco-brand sponsorships of sports/entertainment events;  address outdoor tobacco advertising near schools and playgrounds; and restrict tobacco ads to black-and-white text only in publications that teens read and at point-of-sale.

Then there’s the newly formed Task Force on Childhood Obesity, made up of the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and  Education. It has recently requested comments to inform upcoming policy decisions.

The official Presidential Memo directs the Task Force to focus on four issues: ensuring access to healthy, affordable food; increasing physical activity in schools and communities; providing healthier food in schools; and empowering parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families.

Childhood obesity concerns have also prompted the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which directs the Department of Agriculture to set new nutrition standards for food served in schools, including vending machine offerings. The current laws are almost thirty years old.

Finally, the Federal Trade Commission is requesting comments on its reevaluation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Among other things, COPPA governs what information companies can collect online from children under age 13. Changes in technology and how children use the internet and social media prompted the review.

That’s a lot of legislation and it’s all essentially designed to protect kids from corporate marketing. I truly wish all this legislation wasn’t necessary. But we know that allowing industry self-regulation doesn’t work and that corporations are not going to do much more on their own. Not when they can continue to profit from recruiting brand ambassadors.

And remember, while Washington is spending our tax dollars creating task forces and legislative actions and holding press conferences and gathering comments? Corporations continue to deduct their advertising and marketing expenses from their federal taxes.

So essentially, our tax dollars pay for the ads that sell tobacco and junk food and promote unhealthy body images to our kids.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Read also: Jill Richardson’s Behind the Shady World of Marketing Junk Food to Children and Lousy School Lunch Bill, One Step Closer to Passage and Michele Simon’s Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move – Will it Move Industry?

Image courtesy ex_magician

I would so love to attend this FTC forum in D.C. that I am almost willing to snack on [fill in name of food industry sponsor]’s delicious products all day long. While standing in the front of the room. And passing out coupons.  

FTC Announces Agenda for December 15 Forum to Explore Food Marketing to Children
Will Address Developments in Self-Regulation; Report on Recommended Nutritional Standards

The Federal Trade Commission announced the agenda and speakers for its December 15, 2009 public forum titled “Sizing Up Food Marketing and Childhood Obesity.”

The forum participants will present new research on the impact of various food advertising techniques on children and discuss the statutory and constitutional issues surrounding governmental regulation of food marketing. Panelists also will address the food and entertainment industries’ self-regulatory efforts and implementation of the recommendations in the FTC’s 2008 report, Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities, and Self-Regulation. In addition, the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children – comprised of representatives from the FTC, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Department of Agriculture – will report on the status of recommended nutritional standards for foods marketed to children, followed by a Town Hall discussion.

An agenda for the forum is available. Updated information will be posted as it becomes available.

Read the rest of the press release.

Princess Culture Marches On at Gamine Expedition. The latest research and commentary by author Sara Grimes on princess culture and kids:

. . . the connections between princess-style narcissism and subjectivities of consumption is fascinating, by which I am referring to the bit about girls being taught that they are the “centre of the world” but also that their position as such is mediated through (or even dependent on) the consumption and display of commodity goods (clothes, accessories, etc.).

BPA Industry Manipulates Scientific Studies at MomsRising.org. It’s a sad truth: ” . . . anyone with an agenda can find research to support that agenda.” Sadder that industries fund “research” in order to continue meeting their profit margins at the expense of our health. Sound familiar, Minnesotans? Last year our Governor Pawlenty vetoed legislation to remove harmful chemicals from children’s toys based on his review of such research. Fortunately, then-President Bush signed federal legislation into law shortly after that.

New Legislation Regulates Tobacco Marketing. We’ll see how it is enforced. From The Center for Media and Child Health.

Are you on Facebook? So is Parents for Ethical Marketing! And did you know that you can start a discussion, post links, comments, and events and share your thoughts about marketing to kids on our Facebook page? Now, you can also read blog posts from Corporate Babysitter. It’s a great place to share with other members. Please join us!

You have some extra time to let the FCC know how you feel about embedded advertising in children’s television – the reply comment period has been extended until November 17.

A recent reply comment sums up the issue pretty well:

both as a parent (of a 6 year-old and a 1 week-old) and as a professional psychologist and neuroscientist, it’s obvious that commercial content is not separated from program content in the minds of young children. Please act to confirm, enforce and require the mandated separation of commercials from any programming whose audience is likely to include children under 8, as a minimum.

In other FCC news, Commissioner Adelstein has called for a ban on interactive advertising targeting children.

Image courtesy johnb2008

This is our last chance to speak up about embedded advertising is children’s television.

As part of the larger issue of new rules for embedded advertising (or product placement) in television programs, the FCC is considering what to do about children’s programming. (Background here and here.)

The FCC accepted inital public comments and is now accepting reply comments. Reply comments are due this Wednesday, October 22.

Here’s the deal: The Children’s Television Act of 1990 states that during children’s programming, there must a separation between the commercials and the program (important because, as we know, children “below the ages of 4–5 years do not consistently distinguish program from commercial content, even when program/commercial separation devices . . . are used.” And even then, “most children younger than 7–8 years of age do not recognize the persuasive intent of commercial appeals.”)

Therefore embedded advertising by its nature violates the Children’s Television Act.

So all the FCC needs to do is clarify that embedded advertising in children’s programming violates existing laws and then enforce those laws.

Ask the FCC to enforce the Children’s Television Act of 1990 by sending a Reply to Comments. Instructions are at the end of this post.

In the comments submitted by the Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood (full, summary), they also recommend:

that the FCC prohibit embedded advertising in primetime broadcast programming during those hours when children are likely to be in the audience.

We’re looking at you, American Idol.

I reviewed the comments — all 166 of them. More than eighty-five percent supported changes to current product placement disclosure rules (for adult programming). Most of those comments (ninety-four percent) came from individuals. Of the comments that supported leaving the rules alone, eight out of the ten came from groups, not individuals, including the American Advertising Federation, CBS, Fox Entertainment, the MPAA, NBC, Viacom, and of course, Disney.

Commenters that supported changes to the rules included the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Children’s Media Policy Coalition, the Writer’s Guild of America-West, the Screen Actors Guild, and N.E. Marsden.

I was especially interested in the comment from Korby Siamis:

. . . I was fortunate to have a career as a writer and producer for over 25 years. I am proud of the shows I worked on, shows that left a significant imprint on American culture. I was one of the original four writers on The Cosby Show. I was a writer and producer for Murphy Brown for eight years, ultimately serving as Executive Producer. . . .

During my career, there was a clear distinction between art and advertising. On occasions that we used a product name, we would receive notices from the network Standards and Practices department. If the reference were necessary for the joke, it would stay. Otherwise we would take it out.

. . . The concept that we would ever have been expected to include product names or usage in our writing would have been beyond ludicrous, and would have been strongly fought as the worst kind of assault on our creative process. There is no quicker way to strip writers of their integrity than to make them answer to the dollar instead of their muse.

Now my television experience is that of a mother, concerned with what her children watch. I can (and do) determine which series are appropriate for my children. But the use of product placement is a more insidious force that challenges my parenting. The distinction between entertainment and endorsement is lost on my children. Short of watching every show they watch and talking to them whenever the unexpected product placement occurs, my ability to monitor this unwanted input is undercut.

How did this change take place? Why is such devolution allowed to occur? I strongly urge the FCC to use its power to reverse this trend.

Hers was one of only a handful of comments that directly addressed the issue of children’s programming. Add your voice.

It’s easy to file a comment. It doesn’t have to be formal or lengthy or especially eloquent. Go to the FCC website, type in Proceeding number 08-90, and select Reply to Comments for number 12, Document Type.

Cross-posted from Tracee Sioux at Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me.

“Kids close your eyes!”

How many times do you find yourself trying to protect your children from harmful and destructive images while watching family television?

Two years ago, while watching television, I was assaulted with an image of a woman wearing a see-through nightgown, nipples protruding and visible, erotic soft lighting, floating in a bathtub. It was intentionally erotic, except that she had been violently and bloodily murdered and this erotic woman was, in fact, dead.

“What the heck is going on?” I thought. “Why are my children and I being subjected to this kind of sexually violent imagery in a commercial?”

So, I wrote the FCC. The Federal Communications Commission used to be the people who governed our airwaves. They used to control when and what was allowed to air during times when children were expected to be viewing television. Remember when they wouldn’t let radio stations play George Michael’s, I Want Your Sex?

Many months later they wrote back.

“Each network or television station has control over what it airs during commercials. You’ll have to write each network to complain about every commercial you feel is inappropriate,” they informed me.

“What? Who made that stupid rule?” I wanted to know.

And now that I’ve read So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, by Diane Levin, Ph.D, and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D, I know who made that stupid rule.

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