Long-time readers may be surprised that I actually attend my daughter’s softball games even though the girls wear these uniforms:

After all, local businesses have been supporting kids’ sports teams forever, right? What is possibly wrong with that?

The girls lined up for a photo of their backsides to prove to Graco yes, we are wearing the uniforms you provided.

One team member was overheard saying: “I feel so used.”

And no, it wasn’t my brainwashed daughter, either.

Less than 24 hours before the big Mother’s! Day! Celebration! I successfully added at least three more sessions to my six-year-old’s future therapy bill.

I made my daughter cry. Not the regular, no-you-can’t-have-a-second-donut tears but the gut-wrenching sobs of a truly frightened child.

It had already been a trying day. In the morning she was gazing at her Scholastic book order form and wishing for the Care Bear book/stuffed toy combo pack, just like so-and-so has at school.

I’ve gotten pretty good at talking my kids down from these requests, but today she would have none of it.

But mommy, you let me have a Care Bear before . . . .
I know, honey, why don’t you play with that one?
Because the dog took it outside and now it’s ruined!
Oh, well, that’s too bad, honey, but Mommy does not like Care Bears.
But — but — but, the blue one is EVERYWHERE. I see it EVERYWHERE!

Of course she does, I gripe to myself, that’s part of the 17 BILLION DOLLARS spent to make sure she sees it everywhere. So I launch into my usual talk about the toy companies and how they want her to want their toys so that can make money, etc. etc. and we move on.

Later in the day she finds a pair of old sunglasses and brings them to me. She has just learned to read and is proud of it.

Look, mommy, Hello Kitty is everywhere, too! she says, pointing to the words on the side of the sunglasses.

So now I’m annoyed.

Finally, we are getting ready to walk out the door to a birthday party when I hear a crash in the bathroom. She has pulled out a drawer too far and all its contents are spread on the floor. As I help her pick it up, she grabs a small mirror compact, a trade-show giveaway, and says she wants to put it in her pocket.

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Like Taking Candy From a Baby: How Young Children Interact with Online Environments (pdf), a study released today from Consumer Reports Webwatch and the Mediatech Foundation, found that childrens’ websites are not doing a good enough job disclosing their advertising and marketing tactics to parents.

Parents involved in the study kept video journals which documented families’ frustrations with game websites and virtual worlds that draw kids into games and require a purchase to continue playing, among other things. Watch a few of the videos. I’d be surprised if some of those scenarios haven’t already been played out in your home.

Many online games and virtual worlds violate at least two of PEM’s standards of ethical marketing:

1. They interfere with the parent-child relationship by enticing young children to hand over an email address (and other personal information) without parental permission.

2. They take advantage of a child’s inability to understand that advertisers want their money by making the ads indistinguishable from the game itself.

Aaron Delwiche identifies one of the major problems with kids’ virtual games:

For the most part, so-called “virtual worlds” aimed at youth are little more than paper-doll worlds in which players are encouraged to spend virtual money on their on-line avatars. In almost all of these spaces, the pattern is mind-numbingly familiar: Create avatar. Play games. Earn money. Shop for your avatar. Earn money. Shop for your avatar’s house. Earn money. Shop for your avatar. Earn money. Shop. Work. Shop. Work. Shop. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The only thing that really differentiates each of these worlds from one another is the quality of the art direction and the intellectual property rights secured by the world’s creators.

The developmental benefits of childhood creative play are lost when the play becomes scripted. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to participate.

Katie L. at the New Media Research Studio at NYU hits on my biggest gripe with virtual worlds:

Although I felt that I had a firm grasp on the way things worked in the WebKinz World, I spent some more time throughout this past week exploring the site in hopes of uncovering more redeeming qualities that could potentially counteract its overwhelming focus on promoting consumer culture. Unfortunately however, all I could find was more evidence that the virtual component of Webkinz functions as a mini-capitalist economy, priming children to think first and foremost about getting more money in order to buy more things.

It feeds into ‘you can never have enough, and the more you have the better it is.’

The game creators have no incentive to make the games better — they want to encourage early consumer habits in order to maintain customers for their advertisers — unless we stop playing. And buying.

To help wean away from the virtual world and game habit, try WolfQuest, created by the Minnesota Zoo and eduweb. No ads, no cost. And no mini-capitalist economy.

photo courtesy Spigoo

by Cindy Droog
Reprinted with permission.

A close friend of mine, Tony, who is unmarried, doesn’t have children and lives in an apartment the approximate size of our son’s nursery, came to visit us from New York City a few weeks ago. Our house has changed slightly since his last visit two years ago.

Back then, you could walk through the living room. Today, it’s much more exciting. You can actually skateboard through it by hitting – at just the right angle – an open storybook and sliding to the back door. It’s a quicker trip that way. Not to mention, my balance has improved immensely.

Then, we had a fully stocked bar in the kitchen. Within arm’s reach, we had my favorite Pinot Noir, my husband’s Jack Daniels and ingredients for the perfect 007 martini. And on the bottom shelf, hand-painted cocktail glasses I’d picked up at a market outside Monterrey, Mexico on a business trip.

That cabinet – open shelving and all – now lives in our bathroom, serving as the perfect home for girly and manly shaving creams, living together in harmony. It had no business being in the kitchen anymore, unless we’d planned to stock it with animal crackers. Which by the way, are way too crumbly to use as a substitute for a lime slice in a margarita.

I did have a Sam Adams on hand to offer Tony that day. Of course, I neglected to tell him it had been in the fridge since October.

These changes at my house had been the obvious ones. In fact, my husband and I discuss the pending reopening of our bar – in 18 years – on a regular basis. But Tony made another observation, one that we, frankly, had not noticed.

My son’s coloring book? Handy Manny. His storybooks strewn across the floor? Thomas the Train and Elmo. His current favorite thing to carry around? A Mr. Incredible doll. The crackers he was munching on that day? Scooby snacks.

In completely innocent fashion, Tony said, “Wow! Everything they make for kids today is so commercialized. They must choose the shows they put on TV solely on their marketability as toys.”

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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.

Trying to compose this letter to the editor (no, the second one) at the StarTribune was a great exercise. I wanted to respond to an article on Piper Jaffray’s survey of teenage shoppers. It took me half a day to get from my first draft to the eight sentences that appeared in the newspaper. Blog rants do not translate easily to the opinion page.

What I didn’t say was that I was completely put off that Piper Jaffray (NYSE: PJC) gets free access to public schools.

Reminds me a bit of our experiences with Junior Achievement, which brings me to this year’s lesson. It topped even last year’s.

The theme of the day (for fourth- and fifth-graders) was “Our Region:” 

. . . students discover the natural, human, and capital resources in their home states and in regions of the United States. JA classroom volunteers show how resources are combined to create goods and services that individuals, businesses, and organizations provide to consumers.

For one activity, the kids had to come up with a business, determine the natural, human, and capital resources they would need to run that business, and then determine the best location for it. If the chosen location does not have all the needed resources, the kids are asked to consider moving it to another state. 

Another activity was a board game, THE BOTTOM LINE. The children run “The Little e-Racer Company” which manufactures small, car-shaped erasers. Moving around the board, they keep track of income and expenses (oil, soap, color) and encounter challengers that a company might face. For example:

– Go to Penny Mart: Christmas sales are booming. (Income: $200)
– Go to Polly & Pete’s Pizza: Polly & Pete put the e-Racer in all of their Smiley Meals. We sell more e-Racers. (Income: $50)
– RISK Seadog’s Shipyard: We decide not to fix the oil tanker. It spills oil in the sea. We must clean up the oil! (Expense: $100)

And here’s the little piece of plastic that the actual ”e-Racer” came in:

If you’re a corporation and you want to feel/look good by engaging the Youth of Today, at least give them relevant — and accurate — lessons. Of course, I’d prefer you’d stop selling your services — and the propaganda of corporate marketing — in our schools.

Any news about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty fills me with sweet nostalgia.

Unilever To Launch Dove Digital Channel

The channel will feature an editorial board of experts, guest editors and “ambassadors,” all of whom will drive conversation around today’s “burning questions”–provocative, timely and relevant topics that are central to the real beauty debate, Dove says. Women will have the opportunity to join the conversation in a positive, educational and inspiring environment . . . and can learn about products . . . .

(Here’s my burning question: how do you people sleep at night?) 

It brings me back to the very first post I ever wrote, the post that got me started on the road to Parents for Ethical Marketing. Here it is, from October 2006, with updates noted.

Marketing to my daughters 

Zero Boss (update 4/14/08: blog no longer exists) turned me on to the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty’s film, Evolution. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look. No denying that it is pretty cool.

There’s lots of praise out there for Dove and this campaign: “It is a real eye opener and I am happy that Dove has chosen to try and break people’s warped sense of beauty. It may save lives.”

Could these corporate heads actually be concerned about the future and well being of our girls? I’m a tad skeptical of anyone who is trying to sell me something, so I looked further.

The good folks at Dove tell us that their altruistic Campaign for Real Beauty was “fueled” by the results of their 2004 study, The Real Truth About Beauty. Their next step was to commission another study, Beyond Stereotypes: Rebuilding the Foundation of Beauty Beliefs.

Silvia Lagnado, global brand director for Dove:

“With this year’s Dove global study . . . we wanted to go a step further in our efforts with women globally and truly ‘walk the talk’ in helping women embrace real beauty.”

Bravo!

“The ultimate goal of this study, and associated programs launched upon its completion, is to help more women – especially young girls – to overcome and challenge harmful stereotypes and genuinely embrace healthy, authentic and positive ways of being beautiful.”

Kudos to Dove! It’s about time!

“Being a global beauty brand, we believe we have a clear responsibility to not only show different kinds of role models, but also to help the next generation – in particular young girls – to grow up without the pressure and the consequences of having to live up to unrealistic beauty ideals.”

Wonderful! Spectacu–, ah, wait a minute. Global beauty brand?

The study’s white paper explains that the research was “managed by StrategyOne – a specialist applied research firm based in New York.”

“StrategyOne adopted a rigorous, two-phased academic approach to explore and validate many assumptions about stereotypes, beauty, self-esteem and self-actualization in young girls and women.”

An academic “approach?” What exactly is an academic “approach” to research? I’m starting to sense that maybe StrategyOne is not housed at NYU.

From their website (update 4/14/08: site is now password protected):

StrategyOne
We help companies win new business.

Huh.

It gets better. Dove is owned by Unilever (NYSE:UL), makers of fine home and personal care products — for example, SLIM-FAST.

CEO Patrick Cescau, writes in their 2005 annual report:

At the start of 2005 it was clear what we had to do. We had to restore our competitiveness in the market and get the business growing again. . . . Our approach was simple . . . better execution, especially in the areas of marketing and customer management. . . .

Customer management? What about walking the talk?

From a Unilever press release for another product:

Suave(TM) Hosts the Ultimate ‘Hot Moms’ Soiree

“Beauty definitely has a place within motherhood and the truth is, when you look good, you feel better about yourself.”

Looks like Dove/Unilever has learned how to better manage their customers.

Listen, if we really want to help our daughters’ self-esteem, encourage them to use their brains when confronted by anything they see or read, especially corporate advertising. Teach them to ask the simple question: Who benefits?

Dove is supporting uniquely ME!, a self-esteem program developed by the Dove Self-Esteem Fund and the Girl Scouts of the USA. They’ll donate more if you buy Dove. I’m sure it’s a fine program, but I think we should take the money we’d spend on a year’s worth of Dove products and give it to a local nonprofit whose mission is to support girls — not make money for shareholders — like the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota here in Minneapolis.

Update: Miss Bimbo off her diet pills.The boys behind missbimbo.com had second thoughts about the messages they were sending their players:

As a result of this rather surprising media attention we have decided to remove the option of purchasing diet pills from the game. We apologise to any players whom this may inconvenience but we feel in light of this weeks proceedings it is the correct action to take.

Can a Bratz doll represent a strong role model? I’m going with “no,” but would like to hear the arguments.

Relaunched Sweet Valley High books have thinner characters. Thanks to Facebook PEM Fan Juliet Ray. Why would Random House a) even think to do this and b) point it out in a press release?

Celebrating Families attacks consumer culture in the U.K. Psychologists Maye Taylor and Helen Sanderson believe parents are unfairly blamed in the media:

They are getting all the responsibility for what is being claimed as a breakdown in family life and all the experts are telling them they are doing it wrong. We are both psychologists and both parents and we thought we would fight back.”

Good idea!