Demonstrators Drown Message in So Much Ketchup
A crazed character in a dark, wrinkled suit is manically gyrating just beyond a blue barricade that, thankfully, separates me from him. As he frantically waves a raggedy baby doll, a flaccid French-fry-shaped headdress flops about on his crown. Two bespectacled eyes glare from haphazardly cut holes in his bright red, McDonald's fry-inspired, synthetic sheath.
"This is your kid and she's mine!" huffs the fry guy. "I'm gonna stick her right in my bank account!"
Who is this masked maniac? His name is David Burke, but when he's sportin' this garish get-up, you can refer to him as "Mr. Golden Marble," thank you very much.
He's among a rag-tag crew of professors, psychiatrists, Ph.D.'s, non-profit organization directors and other concerned parties who have taken time out from their everyday duties to attend a demonstration against the advertising "assault on children." It just so happens that directly across the street at NYC's Grand Hyatt Hotel, anxious agency staffers cross fingers and clench jaws in hopes of garnering a coveted Golden Marble award for excellence in promoting to kids.
Wrestling with Madison Ave. Manipulators
As it turns out, it's really a beautiful day for a protest. At about 70 degrees, a perfect mix of sun and clouds domes midtown. Buses screech and horns pierce the whirring street sounds as torrents of tourists traipse by, shoved by frustrated city regulars. There couldn't be more than fifty protesters blockaded within the NYPD-supplied barricades. Passersby are greeted with picketers' signs, prompting folks to "Honk if You Hate Ronald McDonald!" Other posters insist, "Schools Should be Advertising Free Zones" and "Expel ChannelOne." Owned by Primedia, ChannelOne provides advertisers with captive student audiences through its classroom TV "news" broadcasts.
Convening here are representatives of organizations like the Center for the New American Dream, Obligation.org, Media Education Foundation, the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education, Commercial Alert and White Dot (the international campaign against television). As Susan Linn, associate director at the Media Center of Judge Baker Children's Center puts it when the press conference kicks off, "We are here to protest the escalating exploitation of children by corporate America and by Madison Avenue. We are protesting the Golden Marble Awards because we believe it is wrong to reward creativity when it is used to manipulate children for profit."
"Children pay for advertising," she continues. "They pay with their safety, health, well-being, family relationships, and even their education."
Although the general sentiment here is "marketing to kids is bad," factions among the promoters of that broad topic begin to emerge as speakers take the mike. Some take the anti-violent-toy route. A plush wrestling doll displaying the name, "Hitman" is used as a prop, but it just seems too damn cute to symbolize aggressive behavior.
"All right! It's a Bret the Hitman Hart doll!" I smirk as my thoughts hark back to the WWF's glory days of Superfly Snuka, Mean Gene and the Junkyard Dog (may he rest in peace).
Others stress the need to rid public schools of insidious advertising, specifically referring to ChannelOne and ZapMe!, the company that provides free PCs to classrooms in exchange for data collecting capabilities. Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media ecology at NYU refers to in-school advertising as "a shameful, if not a barbaric practice." Referring to the battle against school ads, he forcefully predicts, "We're here to fire the first shot at what I expect will be a long, but ultimately victorious battle."
Dr. Alvin Poussaint, director of the Media Center of Judge Baker Children's Center wonders aloud: "With all the talk of increasing the academic standards of America's schools, you'd wonder how commercial messages, this booming and buzzing confusion that's inflicted on [children] for the purpose of extracting dollars from their pockets, is going to contribute to academic standards."
Stuffing Wallets with Suckling Piglets
And what of regulatory standards? In addition to parental guidance, should there be a shared responsibility among government and business when it comes to marketing that directly targets tots? Allen Kanner, a Ph.D. from the Wright Institute thinks so. The press conference also has become a forum in which to preach his anti-materialism message: "The big lie that is presented as the unchallenged oracle of faith is that happiness can be bought. The symbols that embody the myth take the form of corporate logos."
In a world where more and more adults, and young'uns alike, brandish logo-laden clothing and accessories as if they were stars of David, that myth may as well be carved in stone.
At the demonstration, fast food chain promotions luring kids with entertainment-affiliated toys are also vilified. Speakers opine that eating disorders and obesity have become prominent health problems among children, yet junk food and high-calorie sodas are heavily promoted towards our increasingly plump younglings. Hey, these marketers are simply concerned with these kids' futures, is all. Otherwise, who will be there to support the diet, fitness, cosmetic surgery, pharmaceutical and pandering fashion mag industries of tomorrow? Or better yet, what will become of Oprah and Richard Simmons?
Necks crane and ears strain as attendees attempt to hear over the incessant blare of Grand Central Station bustle. "Why the hell are we outside, anyway?" I ponder. But alas, the protest focus finally shifts back to those Golden Marble monsters, a.k.a "the folks across the street."
So, why are these awards so inherently evil that they've attracted a protest? Well, according to the literature distributed by the Judge Baker Children's Center at Boston, Massachusetts' Wheelock College, "They celebrate advertising without questioning the ethics of marketing to children." In addition, "They reward advertisers for effective campaigns regardless of how the products they sell negatively impact the well-being of children and families." Plus, many demonstrators don't appreciate the fact that past award winners have created campaigns promoting "violent toys, fast food, and caffeinated soft drinks high in sugar…."
Jacob and the Trickers
The same press conference print-out lists "Recommendations for positive change." Among them are federally-funded research on the "consequences of intensive marketing to children," bans on kid-targeted ads for harmful products and ads in schools, as well as "uniform age-based ratings" for toys, games, TV shows and movies.
Hey, I'm all for ad bans in public schools, and research doesn't sound like a bad idea, although I'm not so sure it should be federally funded. The thing is, the libertarian in me cringes at the PMRC-like calls for ratings and bans on products that some uptight board of appointees would deem harmful.
Certainly, there are ways to combat potentially negative marketing missives that don't entail legislation. Diane Samples of Media Knowledge believes so. A proponent of media literacy, i.e. teaching ways in which to digest and analyze media, rather than simply swallowing it, she gives "teacher in-service training sessions." Samples also runs "Club Media," a day camp where kids create their own video productions.
"Kids deserve to know that they're a target market," she claims, struggling to bear the weight of her four-year-old appendage, Jacob. "They deserve to know how they're being targeted -- that their emotions are being manipulated."
Mommy and Jacob each wear matching white T-shirts that read, "Madison Avenue -- Leave the Kids Alone." All the while, chants from across the protest pod erupt as quickly as they fizzle: "ChannelOne: out of our schools! ChannelOne: out of our schools!" Jacob, the adorable little munchkin that he is, pops his head up momentarily from Mom's shoulder to chime in with a "ChannelOne Huablahblahblah." For some reason, though, I keep staring at the "Leave the kids alone" T's, and the phrase, "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding" leaps to mind, British headmaster and all....
"He calls them the trickers," mentions Samples, when I ask just how aware li'l Jacob is of the situation, and the reason for his attendance. "They like to get their money and they make children want things," notes Jacob, as if he's reciting multiplication tables.
Somehow, to me anyway, Jacob's presence seems to dilute the impact of his mother's message. I begin to notice the same sour creep that seems to enter my gut whenever I see a young child enter a bar. I find the idea of employing a four-year-old boy as a representative of other children, in order to protest against, essentially, the exploitation of children, ironic, if not upsetting. But then again, maybe Mom couldn't get a babysitter -- who knows?
Although Samples, and other demonstrators agree on the need for media literacy promotion, not everyone buys into the idea of it as a panacea. Take Carrie McLaren, for instance. The editor/producer of Stay Free Magazine, a Brooklyn-based publication that focuses on "issues surrounding commercialism and American culture," opines that media literacy only serves to legitimize the significance of media.
Meanwhile, Back at the Enemy's Camp
All right, enough of the naysayers, I think. Let's check out the scene across the street. In the lair of the evil-doers, a.k.a. the Grand Hyatt, the lights are low and the mood is fairly calm. Golden Marble nominees shuffle about, eyes glazed. The timing is impeccable; the herd is hungry for lunch, which hopefully means they'll say anything just to get my mini-tape recorder contraption out of their faces.
I thrust myself upon two unwitting attendees. Are they aware of the protest going on outside? What do they think about the sentiments of the demonstrators? Just to get some blood flowin', I toss in the fact that the term "barbaric" was actually used to describe kid-targeting practices.
"I wish they could have been in here to see the spots that were produced by the guys that were working for the Anti-Smoking League," comments Renee Mahoney, creative director at Chicago's Communicator Marketing Worldwide. "There's a lot more that they're not seeing."
I discover that she and her cohort, entertainment director, Chris Rago, have just won a Golden Marble for their work on an Austin Powers Home Video Promotion with Corn Nuts. "Since when do kids eat corn nuts?" I want to ask.
"The reason you get into kids marketing is because you love kids," stresses Rago. "It's not like we're out to destroy their feeble little minds."
Mahoney admits that she's never even heard of this anti-ad underworld before today. "I've seen people protesting cruelty to animals. I've seen PETA, things like that, but I've never really thought about it before. I never thought that we were doing anything bad."
Ahh…the bliss of the ad agency bubble: it's so comforting, isn't it?
There's time for one more sneak attack. "Do you guys know about the demonstration going on across the street?"
"It must be some SAG thing, right?" a voice inquires.
"No -- they're protesting against marketing to kids," I clarify.
"Oh, you mean that guy with the doll?" asks another, more sarcastic fellow, accompanied by an eye-roll. The anonymous Leo Burnett art director works on the Nintendo and Kellogg's accounts. What's his take on in-school advertising? "I think advertising in schools is good," he intimates. "They give a lot of money to the schools." Apparently, because both his parents were teachers, he feels justified in his belief. He goes on to say, "It all comes down to the parents. The onus is on the parents."
Ultimately, he's right. Of course parents need to take responsibility. However, coming from someone who directly targets nascent minds, it seems as though this guy might be just as comfortable shoving a quadriplegic off a pier and insisting that it's his own damn fault he can't swim.
So, in the end, perhaps the marketers could learn something from their demonstrating adversaries. Ironically, though, the anti-marketing protesters could use a marketing lesson or two themselves. How so? Well, their message is completely muddled. Are they against violent toys, television or fast food? Do they want bans on ads in the classroom, or legislation prohibiting kid marketing as a whole? As any marketer worth her salt knows, the clarity of the message is paramount to the success of any campaign, be it for happy meals or French fry protests. Here's my suggestion for the demonstrators: hire a marketing consultant next time.
