CCFC NEWS - Fall, 2007
In this issue:
CCFC to
McDonald’s: Stop Selling Sex with a Side of Fries (or Apple
Dippers)
CCFC is demanding that McDonald’s
immediately end its highly sexualized
My Scene Barbie Happy Meal
promotion featuring ludicrously proportioned
Barbies with micro miniskirts, halter tops, and
rollerblades.
“It’s bad enough that McDonald’s
continues to use toys to sell kids on junk food,” said
CCFC’s director, Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist at Judge
Baker Children’s Center. “But to lure young girls to its
restaurants by promoting the worst sexualized stereotypes is
reprehensible.”
The McDonald’s Barbie promotion runs
through October 28, 2007. McDonald’s is giving away four
scantily clad Barbies and four sets of Barbie bracelets
during the four-week promotion.
“It’s ironic that McDonald’s is using
an impossibly thin doll as an incentive for girls to visit
their restaurants twice-a-week,” said Dr. Linn. A
McDonald’s Happy Meal contains as many as 710 calories and
28 grams of fat.
In response to concerns about childhood
obesity, McDonald’s has moved to position itself as a
socially responsible marketer. In June, as part of the food
industry’s efforts to ward off regulation, the fast food
giant pledged to change its marketing practices and to
produce advertising that includes “healthy lifestyle
messages” for children.
“Putting rollerblades on Barbie doesn’t
make it healthy messaging,” said CCFC’s Dr. Diane Levin,
professor of education at Wheelock College and co-author of
the forthcoming, So Sexy So Soon. “These dolls send
a host of harmful messages about play, appearance, sexuality
and what it means to be a young girl."
In an effort to present itself as a
family-friendly company, McDonald’s has enlisted a Global
Moms Panel to “provide input and guidance on a broad range
of topics,” including “restaurant communications and
children’s well-being.”
“Parents all over the world are
concerned about the sexualization of little girls,” said Dr.
Linn. “We hope that the Global Mom’s Panel will consider
the well-being of their daughters, and other people’s
daughters, by joining us in urging McDonald’s to end its
exploitative Barbie promotion."
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Alex
Molnar joins the CCFC Steering Committee; New Report Details
School Commercialism Trends
We are thrilled to announce that Dr.
Alex Molnar, Professor of Education Policy at Arizona State
University, has joined the
CCFC Steering Committee. He is the country’s leading
expert on marketing in schools and the author of several
books including, Giving Kids the Business: The
Commercialization of America's Schools and School
Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity.
Alex is also the director of the
Commercialism in Education Research Unit, which has just
released an important new report, Adrift: Schools in a
Total Marketing Environment, the Tenth Annual Report on
Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2006-2007. A
must-read for anyone concerned about the commercialization
of our nation’s schools, the report is available
http://epsl.asu.edu/ceru/CERU_2007_Annual_Report.htm.
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Free Resource for CCFC Members:
Tips for Parenting in a
Commercial Culture
A special offer for CCFC members! Our
friends at the Center for the New American Dream are
generously offering their essential resource “Tips for
Parenting in a Commercial Culture” (a $5 value) for free to
anyone who responds using
this link.
Featuring CCFC’s Enola Aird, Allen
Kanner, Joe Kelly, Diane Levin, Susan Linn and other leading
experts on marketing to children, the 32-page guide children
contains practical, hands-on tips for parents on how
to raise healthy children in our highly commercial culture.
The guide will give adults a greater understanding of what children face today, and to offer
resources to help parents and concerned citizens band
together to protect children from intrusive and harmful
advertising.
A must-have for any parent, “Tips for
Parenting in a Commercial Culture” is also an excellent way
to get others interested in countering the commercialization
of childhood.
Get your free copy today!
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CCFC
to Unilever: “Bom Chicka Wah Wah” is not Real Beauty
Our campaign highlighting the Unilever’s hypocrisy in
promoting its Dove brand as girl-friendly while
simultaneously using incredibly sexist and degrading imagery
to promote its Axe male grooming line is picking up speed.
So far, the campaign has received coast (New
York Times) to coast (LA
Times) media coverage and inspired numerous
discussions in the blogosphere.
“The Axe campaign proves that a
corporation whose profits depend on the success of its
marketing messages cannot also have a vested interest
helping children resist them,” said Bob McCannon,
co-president of the Action Coalition for Media Education.
“Unilever’s Dove Real Beauty campaign is corporate marketing
masquerading as media literacy.”
Help us keep the pressure on. If you
haven’t yet written to Unilever to urge them to ax the Axe
campaign,
please take a moment to do so. And please, let your
friends and family know about Unilever’s hypocrisy and
CCFC’s campaign.
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Your Daughter’s
Halloween Costume: Tips for Parents from DADs
The search for your daughter or
stepdaughter’s Halloween costume can be treacherous, filled
with over-sexed and stereotyped “choices.” CCFC member
organization Dads and Daughters has some great ideas from
Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D. and Sharon Lamb, Ed.D., authors of
Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’
Schemes, to fight back and let her creativity sparkle!
http://www.dadsanddaughters.org/PDFs/HalloweenTips.pdf.
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Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors
by Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.
This new book, by legendary comedian
Cosby and CCFC’s Poussaint, a renowned psychiatrist at
Judge Baker Children's Center, instantly ignited a national
conversation about the dire crises facing America. Written
with love, respect, and sadness, the book illuminates a
vision of for strengthening America by addressing the crisis
of people frozen in feelings of low self-esteem,
abandonment, anger, fearfulness, sadness, and tired of being
used, undefended, and unprotected. By highlighting these
issues and providing tools for change, Cosby and Poussaint
help empower the daunting transition from victim to victor.
It should be read by anyone who cares about the future of
our children.
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Ana
Lúcia Villela wins Brazil’s Top Education Award
Congratulations to CCFC member Ana
Lúcia Villela—who sparked a growing and effective movement
in Brazil to stop the commercial exploitation of
children—who has just been awarded the prestigious
Pensamento Nacional das Bases Empresariais Citizenship
Award, Brazil’s top education award. Ana Lúcia is the
founder of the Instituto Alana, a non-profit organization
that develops educational, cultural and social programs in
low-income communities in São Paulo. In 2005, Ana Lúcia
attended CCFC’s 4th annual Consuming Kids
Summit in Washington, DC. Moved by what she heard and
saw, she decided to make countering marketing to children a
major program area of the Institute’s work. In just two
years, the Institute has already elevated the commercialism
of childhood to a major national issue and helped foster
important policy changes to protect children. You can hear
more about Ana Lúcia’s extraordinary work at the upcoming
CCFC summit. Congratulations, Ana Lúcia!
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Commentary: Al Gore, Global
Warming, and the Association of National Advertisers
By Susan Linn, EdD
I was excited when I heard that Al Gore spoke at the
Association of National Advertisers' annual Masters of
Marketing conference
24 hours after he won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on global warming. After all, it was a great
opportunity to get at one major source of environmental
destruction—America’s addiction to consumption. It was his
chance to confront a major industry whose dedication to
promoting gas guzzling SUVs, plastic toys, excess
packaging—and materialistic values—is a direct threat to
Gore’s mission to save the planet.
But Gore didn’t even mention global
warming in his speech. He wasn’t there to promote the
health of the planet. He was there to promote
advertising—to help marketers better manipulate consumers
and to spread the gospel about a marketing strategy embraced
by Current TV, his Cable station for 18 to 24 year olds. On
Current TV, advertisers get young viewers to immerse
themselves in brands by creating their own ads for sponsors
like L’Oreal, Sony, T-Mobile, and Toyota. Current TV’s
latest call for consumer- generated advertising is for
Drambuie—and remember, its target audience includes underage
drinkers.
Hypocrisy is the norm in corporate
advertising. Unilever promotes positive body image for
girls with one brand, while other brands sell diet aids and
skin whitening cream. Ronald McDonald goes into schools to
teach healthy life styles while selling junk food. But
shouldn’t we expect more from a Nobel Peace Prize Winner?
Al Gore can either try to stop global warming, or make a
kinder, gentler world for advertisers. He can’t do both.
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