Schools Raise Little Money for Selling Out Students to Marketers
As school starts, so will the barrage of marketing and advertising targeting students. Brand logos, spokes-characters and product names are all over schools. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found them on signs, posters, and scoreboards; vending machines; curricula, textbooks, and other educational materials; school equipment (e.g., uniforms, cups, water coolers, beverage cases, food display racks); school buses; and ads in school newspapers, yearbooks, and on school radio stations. The GAO found widespread marketing in conjunction with fundraisers; incentive programs (e.g., pizza coupons given as a reward for reading); school discount nights at fast-food and other restaurants; label redemptions programs that provide funds to schools in exchange for consumer purchases; sponsorship of school events, materials, and programs; and scholarships. Whew!
Food products are the most heavily marketed products in school – and we’re not talking about carrots and celery! Soft-drink bottling companies enter into multi-year exclusive contracts with districts that bring product and branded vending machines, scoreboards, coolers, and other paraphernalia into the schools. One study found that the average high school in Montgomery County, MD had 21 vending machines -- each one both selling product and functioning as a billboard. Younger students, in schools without vending machines, are typically given free coupons as incentive to try out food products.
Marketing is intended not only to persuade children to want and consume more, but also promotes the idea that they can derive identity, fulfillment, self-expression, and confidence through what they buy. When children are occupied with consumer-oriented activity (shopping, for example, or thinking about products or Schools Raise Little Money for Selling Out Students to Marketers | MomsRising's Blog:
