The staff here at Parents for Ethical Marketing is thrilled that Michelle Obama is pissed off at Ty, makers of Ty Girlz Dolls, after the introduction of their newest products Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha:

“We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes,” Obama’s press secretary, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said in a statement yesterday.

We feel it’s inappropriate to change the likeness of a seven-year-old girl into a teen-like doll with breasts.

Ms. Obama, give us a call. We’ll talk.

Isn’t this better than a Top Ten list? Ranked by number of pageviews:

1. A thousand words: Not a post at all; rather, this was an image that first appeared in Feministe. Most hits came because it was linked to in a book review on Salon.com. The photo of the Hooters girl in training toddler-sized t-shirt elicited a collective wtf? heard round the world.

2. Target Corporation assumes feminism is dead; dismisses bloggers and

3. Why the Target “snow angel” ad matters: Bringing the discussion back to parenting and corporate responsibility: Two posts I have no desire to revisit here, after all, it’s New Year’s Eve and there are some things about the year I’d rather forget. But hey, it got me on local television (and therefore lots of hits) and put Target on its own top five list by Joseph Jaffe. It’s been a year since I’ve stepped foot in a Target and I haven’t missed it a bit.

4. Children’s online virtual worlds create dull mini-capitalists: A personal favorite. Hits came mostly from web searches on children and virtual worlds. Got the attention of The Guardian’s Aleks Krotoski. Hoping it affected at least some parents’ views.

5. Helping kids see past commercialism: Another wonderfully written, informative, and helpful post. But I didn’t write it. Tiffany at Nature Moms Blog did. Her original post also has one of the best photo-illustrations I’ve ever seen. Thanks, Tiffany, and hope you got as much traffic from your post as I did.

I also took a quick look to see the top corporate or public relations visitors:

1. Target Corporation
2. Edelman Public Relations
3. Carmichael-Lynch
4. CBS Inc.
5. Procter and Gamble
6. Disney Worldwide Services
7. Kellogg Company
8. CBS Corporation
9. Scholastic Book Fairs
10. General Mills

All in all, a good year for Corporate Babysitter and Parents for Ethical Marketing. Thanks for being a part of it!

We’ve continued our annual family tradition of making — rather than purchasing — Christmas cards. This years’ are especially nice since most of the materials came from a friend who gave us a load of paper and the design concept and execution were handled by my 11-year-old.

Painted paper with shades of green;

Cut out triangle trees with zig-zag scissors;

Added a trunk and glued the trees to black paper, then spatter-painted white with toothbrushes.

Our snowy, evergreen cards:

Merry Christmas, readers, and on Earth, Peace.

Thank you so much to all who have sent your kind words, both public and private, regarding my recent life changes. Your encouragement, understanding, and thoughtfulness have been invaluable.

Two weeks down at the new job and all is going well. Really well. The work is tiring, though, not yet as energizing as calling out unacceptable corporate behavior on a daily basis. (Not as fun, either.)

Recent lack of blog posts, however, has more to do with the Christmas holidays than it does the new job. It’s always a busy and somewhat stressful month. I was successful, though, in keeping the girls away from the toy catalogs, out of the stores, and concentrating on our handmade Christmas cards and a couple handmade gifts. We’re all aware of how different this holiday will be from past years — as it will be for so many families — but it hasn’t dampered anyone’s spirits.

Thanks again for all your support and if you are celebrating a holiday this month, I wish you the best of luck in avoiding the commercialism and embracing your family, friends, and all that is good in your life.

I’m firing myself as executive director of Parents for Ethical Marketing.

If you’ve been following the progress of PEM, you know that my plan was to get nonprofit status so I could apply for grants and raise funds in order to have a real budget — including a salary.

But as for so many others right now, the economy has gotten in my way.

In our home, our primary source of income has been from twenty years’ of real estate investments. And reinvestments. And that’s not going so well right now. Among the obvious problems, like declining home values, we mistakenly thought that new home construction would be a good investment.  And one of our many mortgage brokers turned out be corrupt. It’s not been a good year.

And as for my fundraising efforts? I really haven’t been surprised by the response. People have little money to donate now, and those that do are giving to charities with more critical missions. PEM is not going to be on the top of anyone’s giving list.

For these reasons I am returning to real world of work with a very real paycheck. I am very fortunate to have found a job that’s a good fit for me. I will miss working in my jammies but will enjoy the company of co-workers again.

So what does this all mean for PEM? Several things. I will not be able to commit so much time. For now, I am giving up the newsletter and the prospect of taking the show on the road to parents on any regular basis. The blog will remain, although posting will be more infrequent.

And what does this mean for you? If you’re on the mailing list, I hope you’ll stay. I will still send out action alerts when necessary. And perhaps a special edition newsletter now and then. Plus, I have things you could do. If you have any interest in writing posts or contributing your talents and time any other way, please drop me a line.

Otherwise, I hope you’ll continue reading Corporate Babysitter.

The economic pinch couldn’t come at a worse time for those of us with children expecting a normal gift-laden holiday. Tomorrow, Friday, I’ll be interviewed on how to handle the onslaught of holiday advertising by Minneapolis Community and Technical College librarian Ginny Heinrich. MCTC’s BlogTalkRadio show, Our View from the Park, begins at 11:00 a.m. Central time. It’s a call-in show, so if you have questions or just want to say hi, call (646) 200-4753.

A big thank you to all the parents who attended last night’s presentation at Seward Montessori, a public magnet school here in Minneapolis. We had a terrific discussion and lots of fun as well.

I’d like to point you to a few past posts that may enhance our discussion last night:

Ad creep in the last available space, or, why do tweens need more pulp? (product placement in tween “literature”)
Pawlenty vetoes safe toy legislation but isn’t sure why
In which corporations listen to parents: Bratz doll books pulled from Scholastic’s lineup
Kids as buzz marketers

If you’re on Facebook, you can join the Parents for Ethical Marketing group. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Finally, please consider dropping a note to the FCC regarding product placement in childrens’ television programming. The current rules are being reconsidered. Deadline to reply has been extended to November 17.

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.