Since its founding in 2000, CCFC has successfully taken on some of the world’s largest, most powerful, multi-national corporations.  

2008

• After receiving more than 5,000 emails from CCFC members, Scholastic, Inc. agrees to stop marketing the Bratz Brand in schools.

• In Seminole County, Florida, we successfully pressure McDonald’s to end its practice of sending report cards in envelopes advertising Happy Meals.

• In response to CCFC’s complaint about the marketing of violent PG-13 movies to young children, the Federal Trade Commission urges the Motion Picture Association of America to develop a marketing policy consistent with the PG-13 rating.

• After CCFC partners with the Association for Booksellers for Children to protest product placement for Cover Girl Makeup in Kathy’s Book, its publishers drop the advertising from the paperback edition.

2007

• As a result of our Federal Trade Commission complaint against Brainy Baby and Disney’s Baby Einstein for false and deceptive marketing, both companies agree to stop making claims that their videos are educational for babies.

• After eighteen months of negotiations, CCFC and the Center for Science in the Public Interest announce a settlement to a pending law suit with Kellogg, putting an end to all of their elementary and preschool marketing, placing restrictions on television and Internet advertising, and limiting the company’s use of licensed characters like Shrek

• Working with local activists and parents, we successfully stop BusRadio—a company that plans on “taking student targeted marketing to the next level”—in school districts around the country.

• We help draft legislation and organize support for a Massachusetts bill that would end all marketing in schools and on-school grounds.  Using our bill as a model, CCFC members help introduce similar legislation in Vermont in 2008.

• Our campaign to fire Shrek from his role as spokescharacter for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launches a national discussion about the use of licensed characters to market junk to children.

2006

• Alerted by a parent, CCFC launches a successful letter-writing campaign after Hasbro announced plans for a new line of dolls—for girls as young as six—based on the Pussycat Dolls, a real-life burlesque troupe turned singing group. 

• Our public letter, signed by dozens of state and local politicians and community leaders—including the mayors of both Boston and Cambridge—convinces the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to institute a policy prohibiting the advertising of violent video games on trains and buses.

• CCFC ignites a national debate about the questionable educational value of screen viewing for babies and raises awareness about the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation of no screen time for children under two.

2005

• McDonald’s drops a plan to pay rap artists to promote Big Macs in their songs after CCFC’s protest receives international press coverage.

• Joining with labor and environmental groups, CCFC helps persuade the pension giant TIAA-CREF to remove Coca-Cola from its Social Choice Account.  It is the first time that marketing junk food to children is cited as a reason for removing a company from a socially-screened fund.

• At a major FTC conference on food marketing to children, CCFC is the only organization on the program to speak out about the failure of industry self-regulation. 

2000-2004

• Working with environmental groups, CCFC’s convinces the United States Youth Soccer Association to end its promotional partnership with ChemLawn.

• CCFC holds its first congressional briefing on marketing to children.

• CCFC protests the Golden Marble Awards—the advertising industry’s celebration of marketing to kids—in New York City in 2000.  The following year, Scholastic ends its sponsorship of the awards after a letter-writing campaign.  In 2003, after three years of protests, the awards are cancelled.

• In response to growing concerns about the impact of marketing on children, Susan Linn and Diane Levin—along with Enola Aird, Priscilla Hambrick-Dixon, Allen Kanner, Velma LaPoint, and Alvin F. Poussiant—form Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children.  The Coalition is renamed the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in 2004.