Commercialism in Schools

Schools are slowly but surely being branded and commercialized. Students are seeing advertisements in their hallways, classrooms and even on the sides of their school buses. McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Pizza Hut, Dagwoods and many other large fast food restaurant chains have been opening up in school cafeterias all over North America. A walk down any secondary school hallway will present to you a coke machine, or perhaps a machine to buy candy or small snacks. Some may consider marketing to children in schools to be unethical or unscrupulous, but the young generation is a large market. Marketing to children within the school is an excellent way to reach a specific demographic of spenders while teaching kids about financial management.

Teenagers are one of the favorite demographics of large marketing companies, because they have so much disposable income. By marketing in schools, these companies are reaching their clients target demographic, which in turn generates more sales for their clients, leading to more revenue for the marketing company. Most North American teenagers have a lot of disposable income, with no expenses and parents willing to give them large allowances, or part time jobs that pay in the hundreds of dollars each week. They are a perfect target for large companies in the fast food industry, music industry, technology industry and more because they have so much of this money to spend wherever they please. The real problem for most companies is getting the teens to want their product; they need to make it “hot.” By commercializing schools these companies are able to promote their product, and with enough ad persuasion, their product will be the latest bestseller. The commercialization also benefits the school itself, as the much needed revenue is spent in the classrooms, providing a better learning experience for the consumers, the teenagers.

It is easy to see this from the large corporation’s perspective as a perfect way to earn more money while giving back to their consumers in an area (the classroom) that needs it. However, there are certain ethical dilemmas which arise. Should large companies really be holding the schools hostage by forcing them to market their products in order to avoid financial detriment? Maybe instead of giving their children money to buy lunch at the McDonalds at their school every day, parents should be paying higher school taxes in order to support the school so that they don’t need a McDonalds at the local high school. This is really the parents’ choice though; they have the option to bag their kids lunches every day, or vote for a more educational-oriented government. “Your Trusted Friends” demonstrates the adverse effects of commercialism with the example that in 21 years, between 1978 and 1999, American teenage boys have tripled their amount of soft drink consumption. This may not have so much to do with marketing as it does with parenting. A lot of parents have become a lot less active in their kids’ lives, and feel guilty about it, so they treat them when they can, giving them money to spend on soda or other unhealthy indulgences. Still, many parents want school boards to draw the line and there are serious efforts in this direction, such as a website set up to “protect communities from commercialism,” (www.commercialalert.com), who’s mission statement reads: “Commercial Alert’s mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.” Their goal in education is: “to rid the nation’s schools of corporate marketers, junk food peddlers and market researchers, and to banish their influence upon textbooks and curricula as well.” Groups such as this one are trying to limit the reach that commercialism has on the younger generation, however we cannot keep teenagers shielded from the commercialized world forever, so why hesitate to immerse them in it from a younger age, so as to develop a certain comfort level with it, or a certain immunity to impulse purchases based purely on good advertising.