Wednesday, November 25, 2009
GI Joe’s Milk Mustache: Advertising to Public School Students
The second article for my opinion column ("Small Action, Big Change") in The Badger.
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Hannah Montana, Spiderman, The Hulk, High School Musical, Disney Princesses, and Mickey Mouse flash before my eyes. Michael Jordan and Carrie Underwood flash toothy white smiles at me. I am not watching a commercial break from a children’s TV program. I am walking through the halls of a public elementary school.
In the cafeteria, students pass by the Got Milk? ad campaign posters and line up to choose a carton of milk featuring a picture of GI Joe in army camouflage urging kids to drink the milk they just selected. Students then pick up their hot lunches and stop by the cash register to purchase a bag of Scooby Doo cookies or a Cocoa Puff cereal bar. Other students head straight to their seats and open up their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bratz lunch boxes, pulling out containers of Chef Boyardee, Lunchables, Hostess cakes and Fruit Roll-ups.
Library posters display book-wielding celebrities exploiting their star power to urge students to read. The PTA is running a new fundraiser in which students sell coupon books for local businesses. The Kindergarten classes are participating in Pizza Hut’s Book-It program to earn free pizza coupons by reading X number of books. On a rainy day, teachers might show a Disney or Pixar movie, or give the students extra time on their PC or Mac computers, depending on which company donated to the school. Children color with Crayola crayons and glue with Elmer’s glue. If a student gets a cut, it is covered with a Band-Aid bandage and runny noses are wiped with Kleenex tissues.
There exists a hidden curriculum for students. They are learning to be consumers. Messages are ubiquitous throughout the school building, even on the students themselves. Backpacks, shoes, t-shirts, lunch boxes, notebooks, books, food packaging and even every day classroom products are all sources for advertising to students. Young, unknowing children become walking advertisements for cartoons, universities, teams, companies and products. Public schools for upper grades may not have lunch boxes and folders plastered with cartoons, but advertising wriggles its way into their buildings as well through snack machines, sponsored clubs, restaurants (yes, some schools cafeterias include actual McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.), local business yearbook ads, and military and college recruiters.
While it is noble for celebrities to use their influence to encourage health and reading, any face-time opportunity is at least partially self-serving for a person whose product is her or himself. If a business or university can get their logo on a child’s body, think of all the instant, low-cost viewing of their ad resulting from a walk down the school hallway. As generous as it may be for companies to donate computers to schools, such a gift results in thousands of children who are more comfortable with a particular system and will probably be more likely to purchase that system in the future. Classroom choices of websites, software and web browsers affect children’s outside technology use. A student who uses Internet Explorer at school will probably overlook the Mozilla Firefox icon at the public library, simply based on exposure and familiarity. Some classrooms use current popular tech toys like iTouch and Nintendo Wii as part of the curriculum. I wonder what they will be requesting for birthday gifts…
Businesses are alive and well in government-run schools, and then as soon as students walk back out of the school doors, the advertising bombardment continues on the roads, in the community, and at home. Of course, all children need to use school supplies and computers, wear clothes and eat food. It is not rational or reasonable to dictate to people what businesses they should patronize, or even advertise. Commercialism is a part of our lives now, whether we like it or not and whether we acknowledge it or not.
Young children need help with deciphering the incoming information. They are targets of billions of dollars worth of advertising campaigns but malleable youthful minds are typically not mature enough to make educated decisions about preference. A healthy awareness of ads to which young people are exposed daily might lead to adults being more thoughtful about the role of businesses in schools. Advertising is definitely here to stay, but is it too much to ask that my 4-year old Pre-Kindergarten students not be subjected to the promotion of a violent PG-13 movie on their celebrity-endorsed, government-dispersed milk?
===================
Hannah Montana, Spiderman, The Hulk, High School Musical, Disney Princesses, and Mickey Mouse flash before my eyes. Michael Jordan and Carrie Underwood flash toothy white smiles at me. I am not watching a commercial break from a children’s TV program. I am walking through the halls of a public elementary school.
In the cafeteria, students pass by the Got Milk? ad campaign posters and line up to choose a carton of milk featuring a picture of GI Joe in army camouflage urging kids to drink the milk they just selected. Students then pick up their hot lunches and stop by the cash register to purchase a bag of Scooby Doo cookies or a Cocoa Puff cereal bar. Other students head straight to their seats and open up their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bratz lunch boxes, pulling out containers of Chef Boyardee, Lunchables, Hostess cakes and Fruit Roll-ups.
Library posters display book-wielding celebrities exploiting their star power to urge students to read. The PTA is running a new fundraiser in which students sell coupon books for local businesses. The Kindergarten classes are participating in Pizza Hut’s Book-It program to earn free pizza coupons by reading X number of books. On a rainy day, teachers might show a Disney or Pixar movie, or give the students extra time on their PC or Mac computers, depending on which company donated to the school. Children color with Crayola crayons and glue with Elmer’s glue. If a student gets a cut, it is covered with a Band-Aid bandage and runny noses are wiped with Kleenex tissues.
There exists a hidden curriculum for students. They are learning to be consumers. Messages are ubiquitous throughout the school building, even on the students themselves. Backpacks, shoes, t-shirts, lunch boxes, notebooks, books, food packaging and even every day classroom products are all sources for advertising to students. Young, unknowing children become walking advertisements for cartoons, universities, teams, companies and products. Public schools for upper grades may not have lunch boxes and folders plastered with cartoons, but advertising wriggles its way into their buildings as well through snack machines, sponsored clubs, restaurants (yes, some schools cafeterias include actual McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.), local business yearbook ads, and military and college recruiters.
While it is noble for celebrities to use their influence to encourage health and reading, any face-time opportunity is at least partially self-serving for a person whose product is her or himself. If a business or university can get their logo on a child’s body, think of all the instant, low-cost viewing of their ad resulting from a walk down the school hallway. As generous as it may be for companies to donate computers to schools, such a gift results in thousands of children who are more comfortable with a particular system and will probably be more likely to purchase that system in the future. Classroom choices of websites, software and web browsers affect children’s outside technology use. A student who uses Internet Explorer at school will probably overlook the Mozilla Firefox icon at the public library, simply based on exposure and familiarity. Some classrooms use current popular tech toys like iTouch and Nintendo Wii as part of the curriculum. I wonder what they will be requesting for birthday gifts…
Businesses are alive and well in government-run schools, and then as soon as students walk back out of the school doors, the advertising bombardment continues on the roads, in the community, and at home. Of course, all children need to use school supplies and computers, wear clothes and eat food. It is not rational or reasonable to dictate to people what businesses they should patronize, or even advertise. Commercialism is a part of our lives now, whether we like it or not and whether we acknowledge it or not.
Young children need help with deciphering the incoming information. They are targets of billions of dollars worth of advertising campaigns but malleable youthful minds are typically not mature enough to make educated decisions about preference. A healthy awareness of ads to which young people are exposed daily might lead to adults being more thoughtful about the role of businesses in schools. Advertising is definitely here to stay, but is it too much to ask that my 4-year old Pre-Kindergarten students not be subjected to the promotion of a violent PG-13 movie on their celebrity-endorsed, government-dispersed milk?
