Don't hold children hostage to ads
Sen. W. Greg Rybert
Island Packet, Opinion
March 2, 2008
The State Department of Education recently announced
plans to allow school districts to raise revenue by
renting advertising space, visual and audio, on public
school buses. My initial disbelief quickly gave way to
my strong impetus to prohibit the commercialization of a
space wherein children involuntarily spend sometimes up
to three hours a day. Our children should not be the
guinea pigs of Madison Avenue.
I filed legislation to prohibit the public school system
from forcing children to hear or view advertising
harmful to them or objectionable to their parents. Most
parents steer their children away from destructive
advertising. Parents, however, do not ride the bus to
school with their children, and could not prevent their
children from being forced to view a cartoon character
selling them donuts or a computer generated salesman
pitching the latest version of a seek and kill game. Why
should parental protection stop at the school bus door?
New revenue for school districts need not come off the
backs of our children. I heard, as a member of a
legislative committee investigating student
transportation funding in 2004, from private providers
who offered solutions that cost less and increased
service. I still have a letter from one such provider,
dated September 2005, that offers South Carolina a fleet
of new buses, their operation, maintenance and a
seven-year replacement cycle for approximately $70
million per year. This cost pales in comparison to the
$39 million we spent last year only to replace less than
half the buses, not service them. Surely we would
consider this before we start subjecting our kids to
barkers for chewing gum.
Proponents of the advertising scheme paint it as a
public-private partnership whereby an injection of the
free market supports the provision of government
services without additional cost to the taxpayers. The
problem with the analogy, however, lies in the
definition of "free." A free market marries a willing
seller with a willing buyer, and the key to the
efficient functioning of a free market is the ultimate
ability for either party to walk away from the deal. The
school bus ad proposal, however, pits a willing seller,
the advertiser, against an entrapped buyer, the school
child (and by extension their parents). This deal, in
other words, looks a lot like the prison
cafeteria--you'll get what we serve, and you'll like it.
The extension of this logic leads to ads on the front of
the teachers' desks, on the locker doors, and finally on
the hallway walls. Perhaps the principals and teachers
could wear patch-emblazoned uniforms like NASCAR
drivers, and before they speak to a PTA meeting they can
thank all their corporate sponsors for their support.
The business model for companies that market to children
relies upon a simple premise: children cannot discern as
readily as adults so they fall prey more easily to
smooth pitches and sparkling visuals.
And those business models reap a handsome reward. The
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) reports
that, "From 1992 to 1997 the amount spent marketing to
children shot from $6.2 billion to $12 billion. Today,
marketers spend at least $15 billion a year targeting
children."
The results are clearly worth it.
• Children ages 4 to 12 made $30 billion in purchases in
2002, a remarkable increase from the $6.1 billion they
spent in 1989.
• Children ages 12 to 19 spent $170 billion in 2002, a
weekly average of $101 per teen.
• Children under 12 influence $500 billion of purchases
per year.
The professional consensus on advertising to children
also confirms that such advertising frequently exploits
the desire of all children to establish their own unique
identities, even to the point of self-destructive
behavior. The hard liquor industry broke a self-imposed
ban on television advertising in 1996 and by 1999 eight
of the 15 shows most popular with teens had alcohol
advertising. Many remember the eventual admission that
Joe Camel really targeted children, not adults. A 2006
report by the American Association of Pediatrics
summarized the pervasiveness of the problem by noting
that, "Young people view more than 40,000 ads per year
on television alone and increasingly are being exposed
to advertising on the Internet, in magazines, and in
schools. This exposure may contribute significantly to
childhood and adolescent obesity, poor nutrition, and
cigarette and alcohol use."
South Carolina needs new buses for its schoolchildren.
It need not, however, turn those buses into Orwellian
internment camps wherein the children receive a daily
force-feeding of the latest offerings of an industry
seeking to hook clients at an early age and trap them
for life into whatever profit center bids highest for
the school bus platform. Surely our children are more
valuable than that.