By Dahlia Reich  (Dec. 2003/Jan. 2004)

http://www.todaysparent.com/preteen/education/article.jsp?content=1149102&page=1

A scuffle of chairs, the students quickly jump up to show off the logos on their chests, down their legs and on their shoes: Jacob Jr., Cherokee, Toronto Maple Leafs, Gap, adidas, Nike, Old Navy. About half the kids in Carolyn Schwartz's grade four/five class at Willowbrook Public School in Thornhill, Ontario, are proud human billboards for something. They sit down noisily, still searching for labels, and when visitor Debbie Gordon then asks them if they're influenced by advertising, they look perplexed. Some stand, others rise slowly, unsure. Several don't understand the question.

These nine- to 11-year-olds are perfect. Perfect targets of businesses selling to kids. Perfect for Debbie Gordon, a former advertising executive who now teaches children how to be media smart.

For 15 years the 45-year-old Torontonian was among those creating the ads, working in the biggest agencies in the business. She helped sell chocolate bars, ketchup, French fries, gum, clothing and much more for companies like Heinz, LifeSavers, Welch's, Kraft and Hershey. But the epiphany came one day when she was scrubbing the kitchen floor: "My daughter walked in and said, 'Mommy, you don't have to work that hard. If you get Mr. Clean, he'll come out of the bottle and he'll get into the corners and he'll make our kitchen clean and shiny.' And she believed what she was saying. It blew my mind and I realized we had to do a better job of making our kids aware of selling methods and make them think critically about the messages out there."

Starting with her daughter's class, Gordon began volunteering in schools to talk about advertising. Then, tired of the all the mergers and acquisitions in the industry and having fallen in love with teaching, she left advertising and formed Mediacs, offering media literacy workshops for elementary and middle school students. The only slogan Gordon now sells is her own: "Mediacs - building media savvy kids."

She calls her work repenting. "I say that tongue in cheek," she admits, "but I do think there's a lot of advertising out there that is predatory with children. As an industry, we need to do a better job of playing a role in schools to help educate kids about this thing called marketing and advertising. It should be a fundamental skill."

The petite Gordon, who captivates kids with her enthusiasm, offers four different sessions: Ad-Hawks, which focuses on advertising (this is the one Mrs. Schwartz's class is doing); The Junkfood Jungle, which encourages kids to think about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle and how the media influence choices; Cool-Aid, which challenges kids to think about what's cool; and Newshounds, about what makes news and why. She doesn't criticize products or ads, or foist her opinions on the students. "What I do is enlighten them. I call it advertising streetproofing."

During the 2001-2002 school year, Gordon presented her workshops to about 2,000 students in 65 classrooms. She charges six dollars a student or $150 a class (minimum), a bargain for a three-hour session and a far cry from the $175 an hour she was paid at her last advertising agency. But with school budgets stretched tight, about half the teachers who approach Mediacs don't follow through with a booking because of the cost, which has sent Gordon on an endless and mostly fruitless search for corporate sponsorship. (Ironically, companies routinely spend about $250,000 to produce a 30-second television spot and about $350,000 for a 60-second ad.)

The Canadian Teachers' Federation loves Gordon's work and is currently developing its own national media literacy program for children 15 years and younger. "Critical thinking is important for kids of every age," says federation president Doug Willard. "Kids spend lots of time with television, movies, Internet and other media. It's a huge part of most kids' lives. So teaching them how to view it with a critical eye is vital."

Gordon even has a few supporters from the dark side: Max Valiquette, president of Youthography, a marketing consulting firm specializing in youth and pop culture, likes what she's doing. In fact, he thinks it will lead to better advertising as kids become more critical of what they're seeing - even though his job is to help companies capture the teen market.

Huddled together in groups of four, the kids are working feverishly, trying to think of places where they see advertising: cereal boxes, hot air balloons, blimps, stickers on fruit, concert tickets, trucks, hats, bus stations, "the free sample person." Michael comes up with plastic grocery bags. "No one has ever said that before," Gordon tells him, and Michael is thrilled. The list gets longer and longer.

The Mediacs mom will spend three hours with Mrs. Schwartz's class - 29 students of a multicultural mix, almost all of whom admit to spending hours in front of television and computer screens. She hopes they leave understanding they are consumers and that they're being targeted by advertisers. "It isn't that advertising is bad or good. I want to help them realize they have a choice - to buy or not to buy - and understand that advertising, in large part, is about turning a lot of our wants into perceived needs."

One TV ad Gordon screens for the students hints that kids who don't eat Corn Pops are losers. The Gap, meanwhile, brings happiness - if you wear the clothes, that is. Beauty, success, popularity and fun are other "promised" goodies in ads, making consumers think they need specific products to attain those things, Gordon explains.

This is all big business when it comes to kids. Every year, Canadian children aged six to eight spend about $100 million of their own money, while nine- to 14-year-olds spend $1.7 billion, according to YTV's Kid and Tween Report, an annual national survey that tracks the attitudes and opinions of children. On top of that, those age groups influence a total of about $15 billion in family purchases each year, from snacks and toothpaste to cars and cellphones.

Today's tweens are products of boomer parents, explains Beth Thompson, co-author of Kidfluence: Why Kids Today Mean Business. In general, these parents have fewer children to spend their money on, buy for convenience and to compensate for lack of time; have more to spend than previous generations, identify with brands and, most importantly, invite their kids to participate in household decisions.

"Boomer parents were the first generation of parents to actually have the ability to choose whether or not to have children," says Thompson. "That has had huge repercussions in terms of how they've raised their families. They put a lot of thought into having children, wanted their kids to be a vital part of their family, and so they've included them at a young age to participate in a more democratic sense than previous parents ever did."

At the same time, this generation is the first to grow up technologically privileged - and they're hooked. On average, kids aged six to 14 spend about 21 hours a week watching television and an additional five hours a week on the computer.

Gordon estimates Canadian kids view about 504 commercials a week on television, 26,208 a year. That's equivalent to watching nine full days of ads. And that's only television.

"Repeat after me," she says. "Ubiquitous." The students call back, "ubiquitous." Gordon writes the word on the board. No one knows what it means. "It means everywhere," she tells them.

One result of this onslaught of messages is that "we now totally live in a society where we're judged by what we have," says Thompson. "About 85 percent of kids, when they write to Santa, write in brand names. Brands now represent something, and kids know that.'' Kids are consumers by the time they are five, adds Gordon: "There are data that show that by that age they can recognize 100 brands."

Lindsay puts up her hand to tell Gordon about the adidas she's wearing. Her friends were all wearing adidas, she says, so she bought a pair too. Gordon had just told the students about viral marketing - selling products through word of mouth (see "Did You Know?" p. 144). Michael's hand shoots up. After he got Microsoft's XBox, his neighbour began coming over every day to play. "His parents didn't like that, so he got his own XBox," Michael says.

Media literacy expert Linda Millar, a teacher for 31 years in the Ottawa area, says Gordon's work is important and gets kids thinking "but it's a small piece of the pie. It has to go further. We need to get parents and teachers involved and we need to have comprehensive, educationally sound programs that link with the provincial curricula. We need to give kids the tips, tools and strategies to watch carefully, to think critically and navigate safely through all media. Advertising is only a tiny component." (Some experts counter that we've already missed the boat on this. See "Are We Too Late?" p. 142.)

Millar is director of education for Concerned Children's Advertisers (CCA), a non-profit organization made up of 26 Canadian companies that market to children. Driven by a sense of social responsibility, CCA addresses media and social issues affecting children through commercials and free media literacy workshops for educators and parents conducted by Millar across Canada. Its media literacy program, TV & ME, is used in homes and schools in every province.

"In order to effect change in behaviour, you have to get through to the people who influence their lives the most, which are parents and teachers,"says Millar.

Gordon sings out "Sleep Country Canada" and, without missing a beat, Mrs. Schwartz's class belts out "why buy a mattress anywhere else." Later, teams of students stream up to the front to perform jingles they know by heart. Pizza Pizza, Pogo, AlarmForce, Swiss Chalet, Cheese Whiz, McDonald's, ItalPasta, Pepsi, Mazda, Home Depot and Speedy Muffler King all get airtime. The students have no problem remembering the tunes, just choosing which ones they want to perform.

By the end, Gordon has them thinking about those cheery jingles in a whole new way. She has them wondering, questioning, analyzing. They are a little wiser, more alert. They see the slogans on their shirts and pants in a different light.

They clamber for a good view of the television monitor and sit enthralled as they watch commercials, which they then discuss and dissect. They can't get enough. They want more. It's their favourite part of the session. "Do they [the companies selling the products] get more out of it than we do?" Steven asks Gordon. It's obvious by the way he asks that the answer has already dawned on him.

Josh Vinderine came home from the workshop excited, says his mom, Pam Eisen. "Many kids - and adults - aren't aware of the unrealities of advertising and parents are not always aware of what their kids are believing." After Gordon's visit, Josh began questioning ads more, something he continues to do months after the Ad-Hawks session.

Gwen Rosenfield noticed that her son, Michael, started thinking about how closely he listens to advertising. Michael says he's been looking for tricks of the trade when watching commercials ever since Gordon's session, and finds he is buying less since becoming more media-wise.

At the end of the workshop, Gordon again points to the word ubiquitous on the blackboard. Now they get it. Then she asks them if they're influenced by advertising. This time, almost all these nine- and ten-year-olds jump to their feet.

As she packs up, several kids frantically rush forward to get her autograph. "I've never had a reception like that," says Gordon. But she isn't flattered. "It's all part of celebrity culture - an idolization of anything that comes from this media world."

Clutching her material, she heads off on another Mediacs mission. The times are ripe for her message - she's booked solid for the next month.

Are we too late?

Canadian parents are well on their way to churning out pudgy, pale basement dwellers with few social and physical skills and at risk of host of medical problems in adulthood, says a leading expert in children's media and play culture.

While media literacy efforts are laudable, "I think we've probably lost the moment," says Stephen Kline, professor of communications at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. "We have handed over our children to American television and the American mediated marketplace. You can tell young kids in a neutral way about what advertising is doing, but I think you'll find they already know that. What they're not getting is a critical awareness that this was not always acceptable."

It was felt that children under 12 don't have the skills necessary to make rational decisions regarding lifestyle and products in the marketplace, asserts Kline. For that reason, they were protected as vulnerable consumers. "

All that has disappeared. The emphasis on protecting them against hidden myths and the persuasive pressure of advertising has lessened. For example, we know we have an obesity problem in Canada. We know kids develop a strong preference for fried and highly sugared foods early in life. And yet we don't restrict the direct-to-children marketing of fast foods and snacks that are contributing to what is now the greatest epidemic facing Canada."

Kline is author of Out of the Garden: Toys and Children's Culture in the Age of TV Marketing and the upcoming Digital Play, examining the promotion of video games. He says changes to advertising standards in the US in the early 1980s opened the floodgates to children's marketing. "And when the US has a little sip of wine, Canadians get tipsy."

In Canada, the standards are more stringent but have not kept pace with current advertising strategies, says Kline. "The principle is there but not the will nor the understanding of current techniques. If anything, there has been a blending of popular culture and advertising. We have completely succumbed. Advertising is now a part of children's culture."

The solution, however, is not simple. Kline thinks we need to put the brakes on direct-to-children marketing, particularly when it comes to snacks and fast food. At the same time, parents need to examine their own lifestyle habits, and schools must spend more time teaching kids about healthy choices.

"We have allowed this to happen," Kline says. "Were we asleep? There's no mystery as to why corporations engage in such intense marketing to children. The mystery is why we let them."

Did you know?

Advertising agencies and marketing firms use a variety of techniques to get through to the kid market. Here's a sample:

• Hasbro sent researchers to playgrounds, skate parks and video arcades in Chicago asking boys to name the coolest kids they knew. In this way, they found the coolest of the cool from most of the schools in the city. Each of these boys was then given a new hand-held video game (Pox), paid $30 to play it and given another nine units to pass out to friends. It's a form of viral marketing - word-of-mouth advertising.
• A yo-yo company in the US persuaded 2,000 middle schools to include yo-yos in their school curricula. The company provided the yo-yos at cost and gave teachers physics lesson plans that incorporated the yo-yo. Within three years, sales for the company shot up a remarkable 400 percent.
• Toy companies sometimes plant children in stores to play with their products and attract the attention of other kids. It's called roach marketing.
• Canadian kids were recruited to design the boxes for Apple Jacks cereal and come up with a new colour for the cereal itself. Kellogg Company boasts that Apple Jacks is "the only cereal made by kids for kids in the world." In the US, kids were surveyed by Heinz to determine the new colour of ketchup. First choice was green.
• Clothing companies and others search out trend-setting kids and give them free products in the hope they will use them. It's called seeding.
• Publications serving the advertising industry shamelessly talk about "owning" children and developing "cradle-to-grave" brand loyalty. Advertisers also promote the "nag factor" - a term for children pestering parents to buy.
• Cross-marketing is a growing phenomenon. In the US, for example, TV programs geared toward tweens and teens advertise heavily on their favourite radio stations. And PG-13 movies advertise during TV shows that kids watch. Violent films, such as The Mummy (PG-13), market toys to children as young as four.
• Child psychologists are used by advertising agencies to observe and interpret reactions to products by children, and are asked for advice on how to influence kids.
• Some food companies now market their products to toddlers through educational children's books, such as The Sun-Maid Raisins Play Book. The books often involve activities that require the parent to purchase the product.

Tips for Parents

For practical suggestions on how to help kids think critically about what they are seeing and hearing on TV and the Net, check out these agencies and Web sites:

Media Awareness Network: media-awareness.ca
Concerned Children's Advertisers: cca-kids.ca
PBS Kids, Don't Buy It:
pbskids.org/dontbuyit