Moms Mash Marketers

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 18, 2001 | by Cheryl Wetzstein

`Rebel mothers' uncomfortable with trends in marketing are asking advertisers to sell `good' values, such as civility, to children as well as adults.

You deserve a break today.... Have it your way.... Obey your thirst.... Got the urge? ... Just do it. Are these slogans meant for adults? Think again. Some of America's biggest companies are aiming such advertisements toward young children.

"The central message of the ads is that it's about you -- what you want, when you want it, right now -- and about buying things to make yourself feel good and give your life meaning," says Enola G. Aird, director of the Motherhood Project at the Institute for American Values (IAV) in New York City. "That, in our view, is antithetical to the value system that you need in order to raise good, healthy children who are able to contribute to democratic life."

At a recent symposium in New York, Aird and more than 100 other "rebel mothers" rolled out their own marketing campaign. They issued a "Mothers' Statement to Advertisers," opened a Website (www.rebelmothers.org) and announced their intentions to meet with advertisers and trade groups to discuss their "Mothers' Code for Advertisers."

The six-point code calls for an end to ads that target children ages 8 and younger, as well as product placements in movies aimed at children. The group also wants to stop advertising and marketing in schools and change the tone in ads to one that encourages children and teens to think about self-control, empathy, moderation and charity instead of "me first, now."

"We're not going after individual people or advertising," says Aird, the mother of two teens and wife of Stephen Carter, author of The Culture of Disbelief. "We're going after an ethos in advertising and marketing that is promoting a certain worldview. If every man is out for himself, that's not a community. In a good society, it's all about you, but it's also about us -- you in relation to the rest of us -- and us working together to do things in a peaceful, civil way."

Last year, Aird taped a soft-drink ad on television that showed a young black male dressed in street clothes. As the youth walked toward the camera, viewers saw the phrase "Make 7" on the front of his shirt; as he walked away, viewers saw the phrase "Up Yours" on the back. "Why do we always have to go to the bottom in the way we treat each other?" she asks. "We're not humorless people here. We're saying something's wrong here."

But one advertising executive who asked not to be named believes parents and consumers have recourse if they find ads offensive. "The network can decide to pull the ad," he says, recalling how an athletic-shoe ad that showed a man with a chain saw chasing a young, female runner was yanked after a few airings. "The advertiser will show an ad, but if the networks get calls from their viewers, they can choose not to run it."

A bigger problem is the targeting of young children to become future brand-loyal consumers. To advertisers, "kids aren't kids, they're demographics," says Michael Brody, chairman of the media and television committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. "Children are not small adults. They don't understand the difference between commercials and programming." But since advertisers realize that loyalty to a brand starts early, "they are going for younger and younger audiences."

Mary Hilton, director of public affairs at the American Advertising Federation (AAF), says the AAF does not yet have a response to the mothers' statement but emphasizes that the organization is open to dialogue. "The AAF has a long history of working with groups and being supportive of ways the public can be comfortable with advertising and children" she says. "This is certainly not a new subject."

The AAF already has established advertising principles, calling for high standards of truth and decency. "We don't have anything specifically on advertising to children, but we feel that these principles apply across the board," Hilton says. The advertising industry has been praised as "the best regulated industry ever because we are self-regulated. Our clients are the public in many ways, and we have to make sure they are comfortable with what we are doing. That causes great self-regulation and it works. We are no strangers to, nor do we frown upon, anyone bringing up their concerns."

Ruth Wooden, former president of the Advertising Council who spoke at the IAV symposium, also struck a conciliatory note. "It's time for these two groups to search for common ground," says Wooden, now the president of the National Parenting Association. "I think the [mothers' advertising] code has lots of reasonable requests in it, and I believe that if there is an opportunity for a constructive dialogue, many advertisers will agree with many parts of the code."

Meanwhile, the revolt against the commercial culture is taking hold and gaining strength, according to Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, a group founded in 1998 by Ralph Nader to combat commercial exploitation of children. "Corporate America has a major values problem," he says. "Parents across the country are mad, mad, mad about the incessant marketing of violent and sexually suggestive entertainment and video games, alcohol, tobacco, junk food, gambling and the promotion of materialism, addiction, hedonism and antisocial behavior."