Dec. 08:
Announcing the CCFC Guide to Commercial-Free Holidays!
Nov. 08:
Tell Toy Companies: Target Parents, Not Kids, With Holiday Ads
We Did It: Scholastic Expels the Bratz fromSchools Thanks to CCFC members, Scholastic, Inc. will no longer be promoting the highly sexualized Bratz brand in schools.
Tell BusRadio: Stop Promoting 90210 to 6-Year-Olds - Sept 2008
BusRadio, which hopes to “take targeted student marketing to the next level” by forcing children to listen to its commercialized radio broadcasts on school buses, is advertising 90210 to children as young as six. BusRadio.com – the company's website for students that is promoted throughout BusRadio’s broadcasts on elementary, middle, and high buses – is urging children to tune in to tonight’s premiere of 90210, a show that the CW Network calls a “sexier” and “more provocative” update on the popular series from the nineties.
It's Official: Big Food Targets Kids - Aug 07, 2008
It's a rare day when I think the Federal Trade Commission has actually performed a valuable public service and lived up to its motto, "For the Consumer." But last week, the agency charged with protecting us from unscrupulous marketers (among other corporate aggression) released a landmark report on food marketing to children. At the request of Congress, FTC subpoenaed 44 food and beverage companies to find out just how much money is spent targeting youth with food marketing. While the recommendations are worthless (more on that later), the data is priceless.
In case you're not up for slogging through all 120 pages plus appendixes, here are what I consider the most revealing highlights. On expenditures, the 44 reporting companies spent approximately $1,618,600,000 to promote food and beverages to children and adolescents in the U.S. in 2006.
July 08
The Campaign for a Commercial Free
Childhood in the US has made a documentary about the commercialisation
of childhood which is really thought provoking. There's a short trailer
on YouTube page at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maeXjey_FGA