Most people who disagree with me and my quest for more regulation on marketing to kids invoke the nanny state argument: Parents, not the state or federal government, are responsible for what their children see/do/buy.

To me, it’s not so much nanny state v. marketing to kids, but more, who is allowed to reach my kids? To teach them? As many would not like the government interfering in our family’s life, I don’t want corporations interfering. And make no mistake, that is exactly what corporate advertising directed at kids is meant to do: Interfere with parenting.

Janice D’Arcy writes about marketing to kids on social networks for the Washington Post:

It cites several new media strategies, such as a McDonalds text messaging campaign, Mountain Dew and Lucky Charms campaigns that ask fans to create their own promotional videos, thus turning marketees into unpaid marketers. My favorite example is of the KFC campaign that embedded a high-pitched sound into advertisements which most adults cannot hear.

If you don’t want the government texting your children, or convincing them to create pro-liberal/conservative videos, or embedding sounds that parents cannot hear into messaging to reach your kids without your consent — why is it okay for corporations to do so?

Telling an 8-year-old girl that she’ll have “everything she ever wanted” — if she “shapes up” her bottom?

When do we draw the line?

Life circumstances (new day job, new house, and a recent health scare) have encouraged me to do a lot of reflecting lately.

I began blogging more than four years ago; my first post criticized Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Raising two daughters, I was inspired to write about corporations who were shaping my girls’ views of themselves in order to make lots and lots of money. A sampling:

Less is more, or, may your daughters’ dream be to drive a Disney Princess car someday

Bratz girls are not sexy and you’re sick for thinking so

Time to scream about girls’ Halloween costumes — again

Girls, pay no attention to the naked supermodel sitting next to you, or, Dove’s at it again

Disturbing advertising trends: empowered girls are pretty girls, or, you can bet Hillary Clinton has no unsightly stubble

PTA is a voice for multinational corporate interests, vows to fight frizzy hair

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was researching what would become the foundation of Parents for Ethical Marketing. I’m very proud of the writing and advocacy work I’ve done. But I’ve found I’m not feeling as pressed to pursue these issues anymore. I’d like to think that it’s because my daughters, now 9 and 13, are over the hump — that I’ve ushered them through those years where they were most susceptible, and have come out on the other side successfully.

That may be overly optimistic — I don’t know. But I do know that the world of blogging and social media has changed so much just over the past few years: When I looked for resources to help me parent the way I felt was right, they were few and far between. Amy Jussel’s Shaping Youth was the first blog I read religiously and I found comfort in the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s website. I also learned much from Nancy Gruver (New Moon Girls) and Joe Kelly (then Dads and Daughters).

Now we have Twitter and Facebook and so many great resources out there:

About-Face

Hardy Girls Healthy Women

Marketing, Media and Childhood

See Jane/Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

TrueChild

Women’s Media Center

And some places that even include PEM as a resource:

Jean Kilbourne (*squee!*)

Mind on the Media

Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV

Redefine Girly A blog for Pigtail Pals

7Wonderlicious

All this is to say that I’ve found myself at another crossroads in life, and with a burgeoning teenager in the house, I’ll be stepping back from the keyboard. Not completely, but I won’t be around so much. I am confident that I am leaving my concerns in the hands of many capable advocates.

Thank you for all that you do.

I’ve never considered myself a mommy blogger even though I am a mommy and a blogger. Seems that all mommy bloggers are (inaccurately) lumped into one big marketing demographic. With one voice and one opinion.

The mommy bloggers were recently credited (accurately) for convincing the makers of Motrin to remove a condescending, insulting online ad from the company’s website. No small feat.

Read the story from Lisa Belkin at the New York Times.

Critics have suggested that this story exists only in the mommy blogosphere-twitterverse echo chamber, which may or may not be true. But any time media messaging can be affected by those who pay attention — those who take a moment to see advertising with a critical eye — it’s a victory for all of us demanding reform.

On the upcoming makeover of Dora the Explorer, to make her appear older and more feminine: 

Nancy Zwiers, chief executive of Funosophy, a children-focused marketing firm, said the challenge for Nickelodeon and similar networks was that children were migrating to more mature programming earlier.

“The younger kids enter into a franchise, the younger they leave it,” she said. Hannah Montana, originally aimed at children aged eight to 12, was increasingly popular among viewers half that age, Ms. Zwiers said. 

On why Disney is making mobile phone applications for preschoolers:

Disney hopes some of its customers will literally cut their teeth on its mobile products: Inspired by the success of multimedia toys from companies like Baby Einstein, Disney is considering making mobile applications for preschoolers. [Executive vice president of business development and operations for the Walt Disney Internet Group Larry] Shapiro notes that young children love to play with cell phones and busy parents may want a mobile “digital pacifier” to entertain them while on the go. (via)

On why Sears is selling virtual clothing online:

Teens and tweens are making more and more of the purchase decisions, or at least influencing that decision. Mom already knows that Sears provides trusted value and quality, but we need to prove to the teens and tweens that we have the apparel and styles to help them “arrive” at school this year with confidence. . . . And as we continue to expand our outreach to the tween demographic it is increasingly important to expand our marketing strategy to include the mediums where tweens are spending most of their time.

Related posts:
Marketers would like a branch on your family tree
Your heard it here first . . . uh, second: Parents, are you Tweenabees?
A sexualized Miley Cyrus? One word: Disney.

Even though I tried to disguise it, I still sound like I was up at five a.m. for my interview for The Guardian’s Tech Weekly Podcast. In the Virtual Worlds Special, host Aleks Krotoski, characterizing Corporate Babysitter as a “watchdog blog,” asked me what I thought about the explosion of virtual worlds for kids. The segment begins around 12:30.

Before the interview, I asked PEM members to share their thoughts. Most of the parents I heard from acknowledged some benefits of virtual worlds (like practicing problem-solving and working through real-like situations) but do not allow unmoderated or unlimited access. They expressed concerns about embedded advertising (or product placement), privacy, and online safety.

Thanks to those parents who responded to me and to those who recommeded Club Penguin. We ventured in and have been pleased with it so far. As I’ve said, I’d much rather pay for access than to use an advertising supported site.

My main concern about virtual worlds is when a corporation uses one in order to hook kids into brand loyalty at an early age.

I also question the VWs that take advantage of a child’s emotional attachments. I can’t be the only parent who had to deal with a child’s shock — and then panic — when she found out she would never see her precious virtual Webkinz again unless she gave them some more money. What real-life value does that teach?

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, fresh from a terrific speech at the National Conference on Media Reform, criticized the FCC’s inaction to safeguard children and asked for industry cooperation when he addressed the Media Institute on June 11.

While many of the steps Adelstein proposed concerned television programming, the V-chip and other blocking technologies, and ratings, he also addressed advertising directed at children. Two of his proposals:

Launch Embedded Advertising in Children’s Programming Proceeding. The Commission should release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on sponsorship identification and embedded advertising. Specifically, it needs to solicit public comment on whether our existing rules governing commercials in children’s programming adequately promote the policy goals underlying the Children’s Television Act and the sponsorship ID rules. This is especially important with respect to embedded advertising in children’s programming.

Finalize Interactive Advertisement Targeting Children Proceeding. The Commission should quickly move on the 2004 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on how to implement sensible restrictions on interactive ads targeting children. The Commission tentatively concluded that interactive ads targeting children should be banned. With the growing convergence of television and the Internet, we need to promulgate rules before interactive advertising becomes an established business model.

Emphasis mine. Adelstein also suggested that the FCC host a Summit on Protecting America’s Children to “encourage all stakeholders to bring their best ideas forward and develop best practices.”

In his speech, Adelstein acknowleged what Parents for Ethical Marketing and other organizations have been trying to get in front of the media-makers: that parents are tired of the fight.

In case you don’t know it already, many parents are feeling inundated by an array of media that are flooding their children’s minds with inappropriate material. Too many parents feel like they are losing control, and they’re frustrated by a seemingly relentless march of coarse material that is too violent, too sexual, too commercial or too unhealthy for their children. Messages or images their children are not ready to hear pop up in too many places for parents to easily control, from insensitively timed commercials during otherwise family-friendly programming to Internet ads and spam coming over the computer.

There is growing concern about unhealthful messages and images as well. . . . Many studies show the damaging effects of advertising on children’s food choices. Some of your companies have taken important steps, but there is far more to be done.

For parents, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole, with an increasing number of moles jumping up faster and faster. Too many parents suffer from a sense of exhaustion or futility. I suspect many of you share these concerns on a personal level, but many of you also work for powerful media companies that are helping this mole population to proliferate. . . .

I believe I speak for millions of parents when I say we’re overwhelmed, fed up and looking for help from the government and the industry alike.  

I would have been skeptical if I hadn’t heard Adelstein speak with such passion and conviction myself. We’ll be contacting his office to see how PEM members can participate in the rulemaking process.

Here’s to a little hopeful optimism!

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

Thanks to all those who thought of Parents for Ethical Marketing when you heard about Miss Bimbo. For those of you who haven’t been introduced to the online game, you can get a great overview at Hoyden About Town.

Miss Bimbo is, to say the least, horrifying.

All the recent press about Miss Bimbo has led to some pretty sad online discussions — and has made me realize we have so far to go to educate parents and the public about what’s healthy kids.

Some of the comments I’ve read online, which are pretty representative of prevailing attitudes:

Brilliant! By making their website over-the-top ridiculous, they are teaching girls that the behavior required by the game is ridiculous. They are clearly poking fun at “bimbo” behavior, not encouraging it. (via)

Nice theory, but the website really isn’t over-the-top ridiculous. Not when four-year-olds play with Bratz dolls. Not when ten-year-olds wear thong underwear. Not with the amount of money parents and young girls spend on clothing.

I am going to go against the tide here and say that I could see a lot of older girls, in their early to mid-teens, who would play this ironically and for fun. The kinds of girls who hate Paris Hilton and her ilk, and loved watching her go to jail, and there are a lot of those girls. They are the silent majority. At least in my world, they are. (via)

A game based on hating other girls and targeting them for ridicule? Not so noble. And not a trait I’d like to instill in my kids.

Parents who don’t want thier kids to participate in this can do thier job as parents and not let the kid go to the site. Sadly, parents don’t want to take responsibility to raise thier children. (via)

and

Of course its terrible . But people should try being parents instead of blaming web sites or wanting the Gov. or other bodies to raise their children for them,And Yes I sucessfully raised 3 Girls (via)

A child who visits the site does not necessarily have parents who don’t take responsibility. Ever heard of a friend’s house? Or the library?

And it still amazes me that people think vocal parents are bad parents. Doesn’t it make more sense that someone who speaks out about problems in their children’s world is a good parent? 

But you know, I’ve never seen an ad for Miss Bimbo. There are no Miss Bimbo dolls. Or Miss Bimbo stickers, or movies, or fruit snacks. No one’s promoting the Miss Bimbo website in schools. There are no Miss Bimbo coloring books. And no Miss Bimbo theme parks.

Guess there are lots of bimbos to worry about.

Related: Watchdog investigates website that lures girls with plastic surgery and diet