Advertising in public schools is back in the news as School Media’s (sic), a new Coon Rapids, Minnesota-based company, begins to pitch their in-school advertising and locker-wrapping services to area schools, including Centennial School District:

Centennial schools may soon tout everything from Crayola crayons to Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” on their lockers.

Centennial School District was scheduled to vote on using School Media’s services a week ago, but didn’t [pdf]:

Advertising in Schools: Superintendent Stremick shared the feedback received on advertising in the schools. Discussion followed. Board would like gather more feedback from community and district staff before proceeding further. No School Board action was required.

The story hit the AP wire and got the attention of FOX & Friends, a morning talk show on the FOX News Network. The producer contacted me while considering doing a segment on the topic. It’s since postponed, but she asked to contact me again “as the story develops.”

Advertising in schools, called a “sacred cow” by the National School Public Relations Association, has long been debated as schools struggle to find solutions to their funding problems. (See also: Will new Minnesota legislation invite corporate interests into the classroom?) These are especially tough times for schools, which have been put in the position of coming up with their own creative solutions to the problems created by state and federal governments and/or mismanaged school districts (depending on who you ask).

Enter corporate marketers like PepsiCo or ad brokers like the now-defunct Bus Radio or School Media’s, who bring funding solutions to schools in a seemingly win-win situation: The schools get to hire the teachers they need, and the companies make a profit. So what’s the harm?

The harm has been documented in reports by the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University since 1998:

It is easy to understand why marketers would target children. They influence their parents’ spending, they spend a lot of money themselves, and when they develop preferences for brands in childhood, their loyalty often lasts a lifetime. Because children spend so much time in schools, corporations pursue access to them . . . . For their part, school districts, especially those facing higher costs and shrinking budgets, often see advertising as a potential source of additional funds. Some are also attracted to advertising and marketing activities because they believe that participating in such activities demonstrates goodwill toward the business community.

. . . Overall, marketing activities in schools actively threaten high-quality education by causing psychological, health-related, and academic harm to students. Commercial activities offer children experiences primarily intended to serve the sponsors and not the children themselves; they are therefore inherently “mis-educative,” because they promote unreflective consumption rather than critical thinking and rational decision making.

Emphasis mine. Corporate advertising messages in schools are in a direct conflict with the purpose and goals of education. Watch Nickelodeon! while researchers and educators are trying to encourage kids to move away from screens and into books. Eat Doritos! and Drink Pepsi! while nutritionists and district food services are working desperately to teach good eating habits and stem obesity.

Why don’t companies pursue placing ads in front of parents, instead? District websites, for example, are probably more frequented by adults than children. Could it be that it’s more cost-effective to influence a child — with years of spending power ahead — than it is to try to persuade adults to change their buying habits?

Children are easier targets, indeed.

As a parent who advocates for ethical marketing, I often hear the counterarguments: If you don’t like the ads, just turn off your television/don’t allow that website/don’t read those magazines. And that’s just what I do.

But I can’t keep my kids out of school.

Here’s a comment from a Facebook posting I read (status is private so you’ll have to trust me) about School Media’s wrapped lockers:

Locker ads are especially offensive to me. That locker is the closest thing a student has to a personal space while at school. It’s an anchor to personal sanity in an otherwise hectic, depersonalizing environment.

CCFC’s Josh Golin offers some advice to districts considering working with in-school advertising companies in Thinking About Allowing Advertising in Your School? Do Your Homework.

More from the Commercialism in Education Research Unit:

Policy and Statutory Responses to Advertising and Marketing in Schools (2010)
Click: The Twelfth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2008-2009
At Sea in a Marketing-Saturated World: The Eleventh Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2007-2008
Adrift: Schools in a Total Marketing Environment. The Tenth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2006-2007
The Ninth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2005-2006
Empty Calories: Commercializing Activities in America’s Schools (2005)
Virtually Everywhere: Marketing to Children in America’s Schools (2004)
No Student Left Unsold (2003)
What’s in a Name? The Corporate Branding of America’s Schools (2002)
Buy Me! Buy Me! (2001)
Commercialism@School.com (2000)
Cashing in on Kids (1999)
Sponsored Schools and Commercialized Classrooms (1998)

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.

I met Mike Wendorf, who is running for the Park District 3 seat here in Minneapolis, at the King’s Fair yesterday.

(As a 501c3, Parents for Ethical Marketing cannot endorse politicial candidates, but I can let you know how candidates feel about issues important to us.)

After I introduced myself and heard Mike’s “elevator speech” (his words), I asked him: What’s your take on corporate partnerships and advertising in public parks?

Mike said, and I paraphrase: Imagine biking down the parkway, and instead of yellow lines down the middle, you saw small Target logos. . . .

I was a little nervous about where he was going with this. But he continued: It wouldn’t be right. The parks are the only place you are free from it. We have to have that space away from [commercialism].

He and his wife Erin went on to tell my about the recent Target-sponsored fireworks during the Minneapolis Aquatennial. Target distributed 3-D glasses that made the lights of the fireworks ook like little Target bullseyes.

My jaw dropped. I don’t know why this stuff continues to shock me.

Mike went on to say that he didn’t mean to pick on Target and that there were ways to work with corporate donors. We disussed last year’s Lowe’s advertising issue and the Red Bull display along the Stone Arch Bridge. He said he felt the Red Bull display was more art than advertising and did not seem to mind it.

You can read more about Mike and his park platform at the Minneapolis Park Watch blog.

Image courtesy howieluvzus

BusRadio is a perfect example what is wrong with the profit-based commercialization of childhood. Children are literally a captive audience on a school bus. They have no choice but to listen to whatever is being broadcast. The BusRadio “service” is sold to underfunded schools as a way to get new radio equipment free of charge. And BusRadio gets to decide what ”kid-friendly” songs sounds like and which “carefully selected sponsorships” are appropriate whether your child is six or sixteen.

Join CCFC’s campaign to get kid-friendly ads like this off BusRadio’s website.
 

A commenter over at the Strib editorial on the Red Bull Illume Exhibit says that someone (a biker?) took a sledge hammer to one of the cubes — can anyone confirm?

And no, I didn’t do it. As much as I love culture jamming, I won’t participate until the kids are grown and out of the house.

The big Red Bull photography exhibit is being set up on the historical Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis and will open tomorrow night, July 10, at 8 p.m.

Red Bull Illume began as a quest to find the 50 best raw moments in action and adventure sports. Photography experts and esteemed photo editors from around the world served as contest judges and hand-selected 50 images from the 7,200 submissions received from photographers in over 90 countries worldwide. These astonishing images now comprise the Red Bull Illume Exhibit Tour, which honors the men and women behind the lens who have braved the planet’s harshest terrain in order to capture athletic grit and triumph. (via)

Sounds great, except that the Red Bull representative at the information booth told me that seven of the photos featured “Red Bull athletes.”  I had asked because I thought it was quite a coincidence that one of the athletes I happened to see in a photo was wearing a Red Bull cap.

Translation: There isn’t enough room for a bikes and pedestrians.
Hang on to your kids. Seriously.

I’m no fan of corporate advertising in public parks. You have to wonder who approves these projects. On June 13, Chris Stellar reported:

. . . [F]inding anyone in Minnesota with knowledge of the Red Bull Illume exhibit turned out to be more challenging than a Rubik’s cube: “Red Bull Cube” didn’t mean anything to the first dozen or so locals contacted for this article. Partly, it’s a jurisdictional problem. . . . Minneapolis city government regulates backlit signs, issues permits for events in most public rights-of-way and has an arts commission and a series of summer arts events called Minneapolis Mosaic. Then there’s the semi-autonomous Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, which oversees use of the Stone Arch Bridge, and that appears to be where Red Bull’s arrangement to install “Illume” resides, although the staffer involved wasn’t available for comment.

Park and Rec Board Commissioner Annie Young, however, said on June 14:

I do not know a thing about this action happening (or why) on the Stone Arch Bridge.

Another commissioner, Scott Vreeland, indicates that the Park and Rec Board had approved the project, and for good reason:

. . . [Red Bull exhibit is] a revenue producing art event that will provide revenue to keep the Matthews Park ice rink open next year. . . . I have been told by hundreds of people in Seward that we absolutely need to keep the Matthews ice rink in the Seward neighborhood open next year. Where do you think the money comes from to do that?

I assumed the money comes from the budget, but I guess I was wrong.

A suspicious Minneapolis cyclist makes too many trips across the
public Stone Arch Bridge and is seen here being questioned by
security: “So, you’re just going to keep riding over thie bridge all day?”

I asked the crew setting up the exhibit where the electricity to light up the cubes would come from. A crew member told me that they thought they were connecting to their own generator, but that a “park board guy” had stopped by and was wondering if they could plug into the existing light poles.

Again, I’d assume the cost of the electricity would come from the Red Bull budget, and not from the Minneapolis city budget, but as indicated, I’ve been wrong before.

Red Bull has a history of unorthodox marketing techniques, as chronicled by New York Times Magazine columnist and blogger Rob Walker in Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are:

As Red Bull gained momentum [in the United States], marketing experts jumped on the bandwagon and tried to explain its strategy. . . . [Mark Gobe, author of Emotional Branding] identified a key to Red Bull’s success in its association with exotic and risky physical feats. “Extreme sports deliver on that need to, to . . . vibrate, in a way. Red Bull is one of the first products I’ve seen that delivers on that energy.”

. . . [Al and Laura Ries wrote] “Red Bull became a powerful brand because it is perceived as a drink that improves performance especially during times of increased stress or strain, which some people take to mean sexual performance. . . .”

Others held up Red Bull as an example of a brilliant “stealth” brand, built by “brand evangelists” who stoked a “grassroots” marketing wave — “building an image for next to nothing” . . . .

. . . [However] Red Bull was spending real money. Within a few years of its first appearance in the United States — and right around the time Red Bull was first coming to the attention of marketing watchers who would praise its supposedly low-cost image-building strategy — Brandweek reported that the company was spending $100 million a year for its American “stealth” efforts. [A company spokesperson said] “the perception that these events don’t cost much to produce is good for us. . . . We don’t want to be seen as having lots of money to spend.”

Hopefully they’ve spent enough in Minneapolis so that we can keep our little Matthews Park ice rink open this winter. We all want our kids to have a good place to practice so they may one day fulfill their dreams of becoming professional corporate brand ambassadors.

So busy with conferences I completely missed the news that the Minneapolis Park and Rec Board decided to allow a $48 billion home improvement corporation to advertise on our playgrounds and parks (Ad creeps lurk around Minneapolis public playgrounds).

Unlike television advertising, our public park is not something parents can “just turn off.” 

Naomi Klein, author of No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs:

It’s one of the ironies of our branded age, that unbranded space. Public space, or pseudo-public space, is now a luxury item that is only really available to the very rich. Once you move up the class hierarchy, things get a lot more tranquil and quiet, and you sort of pay not to be marketed to.

The banner ads are scheduled to remain in the parks until December. When they are damaged, however, they will be removed and not replaced.

Image courtesy timlings