Not only brand name products, but also related behaviors are embedded. Cigarette ads are now banned, but tobacco companies still can get movies to show glamorous characters -- especially role-models, cool actors and current celebrities -- smoking. Less controversial, but still widespread and effective, are the clothing styles, cars, and localeswhich are featured because of deliberate product placement.

A recent study "found that viewers from 15 to 34 are the most accepting of product placement and are more likely than other viewers to try brands they have noticed on television." Advertisers are constantly trying new ways of getting ads into the programming so that you won't get away from the set or click on the remote when ads appear.

Product placements have also infiltrated television programs, music videos (e.g within MTV videos, within tie-in books series, within comic books, within fake commercials as movie trailers, within webisodes, and advergames ( e.g. Barbie for girls, and Army Recruiting's battle-simulation games for boys), and linked to iTunes to reach the youth market. "Enough already!" said Patt Morrison, after viewing the ad-laden movie "Cars."

Such covert advertising (such as paying hip hop singers to insert "Big Mac" ads into their lyrics) is "The pitch that you won't see coming." Furthermore, expensive luxury items (such as brand name handbags) are now targeting young girls in their ad campaigns. Clayton Collins writes, about the new in-game ads: "Though many games are targeted to older teens, members of the age 12-to-17 set are most likely to play, according to one 2004 study.

Much more in-game advertising is on the way."In-game advertising is here to stay, and will increase as more games and platforms hook up to the Internet," says Jeff Greenfield, executive vice president of 1st Approach, a marketing firm in Dover, N.H. "Gamers love the reality, and brands are excited about reaching their core demographic." It's a willing audience. "This new generation of consumers does not consider its experiences 'authentic' unless advertising is involved," says Mario Almonte, a vice president at Herman Associates, a public relations firm in New York."

Time (June 28, 2004) magazines' article "Pitching it to Kids" surveys the issue, focusing on the online games (Neopets.com) and the ongoing controversy about the ethical issues targeting young children as consumers.

In "Cathy's Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233," a young adult novel that will be published in Septembe [2006], the spunky eponymous heroine talks about wearing a "a killer coat of Lipslicks in 'Daring.' ... Lipslicks is a line of lip gloss made by Cover Girl owned by the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, has neither paid the publisher nor the book's authors for the privilege of having their makeup showcased in the novel. But Procter will promote the book on Beinggirl.com."

In October, 2006, a new TV network - CW - was created, from a merger of WB and UPN existing shows (such as "Gilmore Girls,"7th Heaven") and interactive techniques (like You-Tube and MySpace) designed to appeal to the 18-to-34-year-old audience, using ads called "the cws" -- content wraps -- instead of traditional commercial breaks.

In June, 2008, the New York Times, noted another variation of product placement called "branded entertainment":

Some personal gimmicks ( body ads) are easily recognizable as being commercial in intent, comparable to the old-fashioned "sandwich signs" carried in the crowds on the sidewalk. But. other tactics are more subtle: including artificial word-of-mouth (Word of mouse?) ads inserted into blogs, web logs, and IM (called "spim" within instant messages), pretending to be honest, unpaid endorsements.

An old tactic, still used in city subways and crowded busses, is a team of "average people" who talk to each other loudly enough to be "overheard," praising a product (often for new stores, movies, or temporary events), then move to another subway car, or exit to catch another bus, to repeat the tactic.

Local "reps": a few high status students ("leaders" - often athletes) are given free samples, product gifts, clothes, shoes, movie or concert passes. Often self-centered, these students are flattered by "being recognized" as trend-setters, and often unaware (or deny) that they are being used to market to others.

Favorable comments and product praise are inserted into blogs, web logs, chat, and IM ( "spim" within instant messages ), as if they were genuine unpaid endorsements. "Cute" or "cool" online items -- jokes, games, or pictures -- are created, suggesting that you can forward to your friends.

TV Newsrooms Air the Darndest Things (Advertising Age, September 11, 2006):
" Should "viral" videos, produced and placed online by marketers but circulated by amused viewers, be labeled as advertising? Commercial Alert says yes, and the Center for Digital Democracy agrees that "marketer-generated viral video violates consumer privacy." The videos, often posted on social networking sites, "are not identified as commercial speech" and it's "often difficult to establish who is behind" them. On November 6, 2006, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission will host hearings on "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade." According to AdAge, "The biggest worry ... is that viral videos, much like video news releases, are blurring ethical lines. In August, a video produced by TaxBrain aired on local news broadcasts in a stunning 125 U.S. markets across the country. The video showed a man trying to make off with a race car before being stopped and shoved to the ground by security at the racetrack. ... Tracey Watkowski, assistant news director at San Francisco ABC affiliate KGO, one of the stations that reported on the incident, called the incident -- and the use of that type of marketing -- 'despicable.'"

In high school, for example, if you take the SAT tests, you will soon be on targeted mailing lists for private schools and colleges seeking new customers: often these private schools inflate their tuition prices, so they can offer discounts -- i.e. "give scholarships" -- a form of flattery -- to lure students. For much more on this, see: James Twitchell, Branded Nation (2004) "School Daze" (pp.109-193)

In 2002, "No Child Left Behind" law provided the military with students' home addresses and telephone numbers. It also guaranteed in-school military recruiting, "that any school that allows college or job recruiters on campus must make the same provision for the military."

By 2005, the Pentagon had outsourced its data collection to a private marketing company because "The Army and the Marine Corps are having difficulty meeting monthly recruiting goals as images of war broadcast daily from Iraq discourage young people who might otherwise be eager to join the military. Pentagon officials are increasingly worried that the national recruiting downturn is not a short-term slump but a long-term crisis threatening the viability of the all-volunteer military. One particular problem, Pentagon officials said, is that many parents are advising their children against joining the military, fearing a deployment to Iraq."

Advertising on ski slopes. on Kentucky Derby jockies, college basketball backboards, and (almost) on MLB bases. Even churches. on NASCAR cars,

February 14, 2007: Chicago Cubs to put ads in the Ivy at Wrigley Field !

In the past, MTV screeners - worried that the cable channels savy teen and young adult audience would rebel against that kind of selling - have forced labels to blur images of products or logos that found their way into videos. But "Ching,Ching" and other clips financed in part by corporate sponsors have sneaked in under the radar.... Some in the music industry believe that it's just a matter of time before the music video turns into a powerful sales tool not only for musicians but for almost anything they might drive, wear, eat or blow up in a clip.... labels can also side-step MTV restrictions by placing an artist's song in a TV commercial for a particular product and then replicating the ad's feel in a music video, though without showing the product. The goal: to build an association in the viewer's mind."

'It's insidious and subversive,' says Alissa Quart, author of the recent Branded:The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. 'There should be a different way of creating characters in literature rather than generating them from a brand name. There's a multibillion dollar industry out there feeding off America's teens. The whole idea is repellent. If you're a 9-year-old today, you're entering a world where nothing you encounter is pure or generic. Everything is labeled and smacks of commerce."

"... People skip the TV commercials but they are absolutely absorbed in games. With research, you can find out the type of people who are playing, and they're paying attention. There is very little evidence that people playing games are multitasking. And that's what marketers are interested in -- capturing their attention. "

Gaming is so big that it is now being tracked by at least two competing companies -- Nielsen/NetRatings and Comscore Media Metrix. Carolyn Clark, a senior NetRatings analyst, said that the company just started tracking games but that in the last few months Candystand.com, a LifeSaver candy game, is consistently getting more than I million unique visitors each month.

Candystand fulfills the first promise of advergames -- brand awareness. "You can engage people in your brand for 15 to 20 minutes," said Ya-Ya Media's Ferrazzi. "And there's greater retention when its interactive. Your cost per minute is also significantly lower than it is for a broadcast ad. Plus you reach the youth demographic."

Comscore Media Metrix's research shows that 59 percent of boys ages 13 to 17 who go online head to game sites. It's 62 percent for young men 18 to 24. For women the biggest group of game players is between the ages of 45 and 54. And that, analysts conclude, is an important indicator that games are going beyond kids.

Through advergames, companies can collect a database of personal information that allows them to "build a dialogue" with adult consumers. What that means is you register to play a higher level of the game, or you fill out a survey, or you enter your score in a sweepstakes -- and they get your age, your location and your e-mail address. They know where you live. The "dialogue" consists of sending consumers advertising e-mails.

By federal law, advertisers are not allowed to collect information from kids younger than 13. But there's no prohibition against collecting information from their parents. If a child is playing advergames on the Hot Wheels site and wants to register for its Birthday Club, his parents must provide name, address, e-mail address abd birth dates -- for both parent and child.

Advergames also have the advantage of spreading by what one marketer calls "word of mouse." You like a game, so you e-mail it to a friend. They might get the game, or a link to the game site -- always with an ad. At virtually no cost to the marketer, the consumer is doing the work for them.

A Game for Every Market

When Mattel launched "My Scene" Barbie in November, the television commercials focused only on the dolls -- no cute little girls playing with them. This is Barbie with a bare belly and cell phone, Barbie aimed at older girls, ages 7 to 12, the ones already instant-messaging.

In the first ad, Barbie is in a cab yakking on her cell. A cute guy flags the cab down as she gets out. But -- OH, NO! She realizes as the cab pulls away that her prize possession, her very lifeline -- her cell phone -- is still in it.

"To Be Continued," ends the television ad.

But it's continued only on myscene.com. This is a "webisode" of the commercial, explains Cynthia Rapp, vice president of consumer products, creative, for Barbie. When a girl goes to myscene.com, as 1million or so have done each month since the campaign began, they can view the second of what will be 12 "webisodes."

"This is the most integrated product and advertising campaign we have done," said Patrick Shandrick, a senior marketing manager at Mattel.

The campaign is new enough that there are no final numbers, but said Rapp, "All indications are that we are hitting the target" for sales.

And the girls do their part through viral marketing. They can send e-cards to friends online. Girls also follow the three friends in their "blogs," or Web logs, journals that have new entries all the time.

The flip side of the very girl-oriented myscene.com is americasarmy.com, the recruiting site of the U.S. Army. Visitors -- 90 percent of whom are male -- play a realistic shoot-'em-up game that the Army hopes will get them to think about enlisting.

Since it went online July 4, nearly 800,000 visitors have logged 6 million hours of play, according to the game's creator, Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis. Site traffic is heaviest on school holidays and after school hours, Wardynski said.

The game was created, he said, because recruiting was so expensive. "We're hoping with game technology we can get the cost way down." The goal is modest -- all the Army needs is 200 recruits in 12 months to break even, and according to Wardynski, it's on target to meet that goal.

But the Army is also planting seeds for the future. "Some of the kids who play it are four years away from joining," he said. "They are 15, 16, 17. We want to put the Army in the set of things they are thinking about...."

Time (April 10, 2006) "Real American Heroes - Six Inches Tall" reported: "Faced by a dwindling number of volunteers, the U.S. military is adding a new recruitment tactic: aiming young. Real Heroes, a line of Army-authorized toy soldiers modeled on Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, is expected in stores this June, selling for $12.99 each. The first four 6-in.-tall dolls--offshoots of a Pentagon-backed video game called America's Army--are based on four real soldiers, all still serving, who have recently earned Bronze or Silver Stars. " We wanted folks who look close enough in age and background to what we call the prime market: potential soldiers," says Colonel Casey Wardnyski, who is overseeing the America's Army project, budget at $50 million, including $3 million earmarked for merchandising...."We don't expect young people to join the Army because of a toy, but we want to get in their decision space -- and for that you have to be in pop culture."

The Pentagon Invades Your Xbox: Propaganda in the Latest Video Games
A new and powerful form of propaganda aims to indoctrinate young video gamers.
By Nick Turse Los Angeles Times December 14, 2003

Nick Turse is a doctoral student in the program for the history and ethics of public health and medicine in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

NEW YORK — In 1998, the band Rage Against the Machine decried "the thin line between entertainment and war." Today, even that thin line is in danger of vanishing.

In a new twist on President Eisenhower's concept of a "military-industrial complex," a "military-entertainment complex" has sprung up to feed both the military's desire for high-tech training techniques and the entertainment industry's desire to bring out ever-more-realistic computer and video combat games. Through video games, the military and its partners in academia and the entertainment industry are creating an arm of media culture geared toward preparing young Americans for armed conflict.

Such cooperation wasn't always the order of the day. In the late 1980s, the creators of the combat-simulator video game M1 Tank Platoon weren't allowed by the Army to even set foot inside an actual tank. But by 1997, everything had changed. That was the year the Marine Corps signed a deal with MÄK Technologies to create the first combat-simulation video game "to be co-funded and co-developed" by the Department of Defense and the entertainment industry. A year later, the Army signed a contract with MÄK to develop a sequel to its commercial tank simulation game "Spearhead" for use by the U.S. Army Armor Center and School and the Army's Mounted Maneuver Battle Lab. The military has been gaming ever since. Some examples:

•  In 2001, the Department of Defense drafted the video game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear" into service to train military personnel in how to conduct small unit operations in urban terrain.

•  In 2002, the Army launched "America's Army," a training and combat video game developed at the Naval Postgraduate School with the assistance of entertainment and gaming industry stalwarts including Epic Games and the THX Division of Lucasfilm Ltd. The game, which is free to potential recruits either online or at recruiting stations, cost taxpayers between $6 million and $8 million. It has been, in the Army's eyes, a huge success, becoming one of the five most popular video games played online.

•  This year, a sequel to "Rogue Spear," "Rainbow Six: Raven Shield," was adopted by the Army to test soldiers' skills. The Army also signed a $3.5-million deal with There Inc. to create a virtual environment for warfare-simulation training. One project already underway is the creation of a virtual Kuwait that can be used to train personnel to anticipate and defend against an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City.

•  The Navy, not wanting to be out of the action, assisted Sony in producing the video game "SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs," which was released this year.

Though initially the Pentagon saw in the video game industry only a means of training young, computer-savvy recruits more effectively, the mission has evolved into a two-way street in which the military has embraced entertainment titles at the same time the entertainment industry has embraced the military.

"Kuma: War," developed by newcomer Kuma Reality Games in cooperation with the Department of Defense and slated for general release next year, is being billed as the first shooter game that will allow players to re-create actual military missions, such as the raid that killed Saddam Hussein's two sons. Each combat assignment will be introduced by television footage and a cable news-style anchor. Kuma boasts a team of military veteran advisors, who " … make sure the missions … are as realistic as possible." A retired Marine Corps major general leads the company's military advisory board.

Next year will also mark the release of the next generation in militarized war games: "Full Spectrum Warrior" — a video game for Microsoft's Xbox system. The game is a realistic combat simulator that allows the gamer to act as an Army light infantry squad leader conducting operations in the invented nation of "Tazikhstan … a haven for terrorists and extremists." And "Full Spectrum Warrior" is not just any old military-themed video game. It was developed under the watchful eye of personnel at the Army's Infantry School at Ft. Benning, Ga., and is actually a revamped version of "Full Spectrum Command," a PC game/combat simulator used by the military to teach the fundamentals of commanding a light infantry company in urban environments. Thus, unlike other shoot-'em-ups that use violent imagery and military themes strictly for entertainment purposes, "Full Spectrum Warrior's" pedigree is that of a combat learning tool.

The "Full Spectrum" games emerged from a new kind of partnership being forged at the Institute for Creative Technologies, a $45-million joint Army/USC venture designed to link up the military with academia and the entertainment and video game industries. In addition to creating "Full Spectrum Command" and "Full Spectrum Warrior," the institute is involved in a number of other military projects. These include "Advanced Leadership Training Simulation," a partnership between the institute and entertainment giant Paramount Pictures designed for training soldiers in crisis management and leadership skills; and "Think Like a Commander," a collaboration among the Army, the Hollywood filmmaking community and USC researchers designed to "support leadership development for U.S. Army soldiers" through software applications.

With military spending budgeted at nearly $400 billion in 2004, a video game industry generating more than $10 billion a year, a transnational entertainment and media industry with annual revenues of some $479 billion, and no public outcry over the militarization of popular culture, the future of such collaborations seems assured. Can the day be far off when the Department of Defense gets a producer credit for a Paramount film and Kuma Reality Games is granted office space in the Pentagon?

Before that happens, we need to start analyzing the effects of blurring the lines between war and entertainment. With more and more "toys" that double as combat teaching tools, we are subjecting youth to a new and powerful form of propaganda. This is less a matter of simple military indoctrination than near immersion in a virtual world of war where armed conflict is not the last, but the first — and indeed the only — resort. The new military-entertainment complex's games may help to produce great battlefield decision makers, but they strike from debate the most crucial decisions young people can make in regard to the morality of a war — choosing whether or not to fight and for what cause. | Top

This summer, Matt and Doug Stanbro, two brothers from Chelsea, Ala., traded in their game controllers for M-16 rifles. They're two of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American teenagers inspired by a "shoot'em-up" video game to join the Army.

On the same day the brothers graduated from basic training last week, the Pentagon released the latest version of "America's Army," the combat-style video game.

"I never really thought about the military at all before I started playing this game," says Pfc. Doug Stanbro in a phone interview from Fort Jackson, S.C.

With more than 3,000 US soldier deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, the use of a video game and incentives such as free iPods to recruit replacements is a strategy that critics call misguided, even abhorrent. But for the Pentagon, "America's Army" is proving a potent way to communicate military values directly to the messy bedrooms where teens hang out.

"America's Army" is "a sort of virtual test drive," says its creator, Col. Casey Wardynski. "What we are looking to communicate is the ethos of being a soldier ... leadership, teamwork, values, structure."

In a recent informal survey of recruits at Fort Benning, Ga., which was conducted by the Army's video-game development team, about 60 percent of recruits said they've played "America's Army" more than five times a week. Four out of 100 said they'd joined the Army specifically because of the game. Nationwide, the game counts some 7.5 million registered users, making it one of the Top 5 online PC games.

The Army announced earlier this month it expects to exceed its 80,000 recruiting quota this year after missing it in 2005 for the first time since 1999, and officials say a range of recruitment tweaks - including easing up on the tattoo policy and up to $40,000 signing bonuses - have played a role. But few other ideas have been as effective in galvanizing potential recruits as "America's Army."

"The idea was to create a game to get the word out about the Army, and we would make it fun because the Army is fun, and we'll get it right in their living rooms where they're already operating every day," says Col. Randy Zeegers, a military-protocol expert on "America's Army" development team.

Released in late 1992, the game has gone through several iterations. Still available for free for the PC, it's now available for $19.99 for the Xbox and PlayStation. The new version includes digitized commentary from "Real Heroes" - a group of veterans from the war on terror picked by the Army to become modern-day Sergeant Yorks. Those soldiers will be available as action figures for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Unlike many "shooter" games that require pistons for thumbs, "America's Army" is less about racking up kills and more about building skills, players say. And once the battle erupts, survival is difficult. To make a hit, for example, a player has to not just aim but synchronize his shooting to his breathing - just like with a real rifle. The main idea is to develop skills that move the player from lowly grunt to decorated Green Beret.

"When you shoot someone, it's not glorified," says Sgt. Jerry Wolford, a Silver Star recipient for combat valor who is now digitized into the game as a "Real Hero."
But critics say such games are a disingenuous way to tempt children as young as 12 who have little capacity for understanding the dark side of soldiering.

"It's the 21st-century version of a John Wayne movie," says Winslow Wheeler, a military expert at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "Because they don't show people's best friends getting their arms blown off ... these kinds of games can be very deceptive."

Some military experts also say that recruiting gambits like MySpace.com advertisements and video games are indicative of an Army scraping the bottom of its working-class recruiting pool. Nearly 40 percent of recruits now score in the bottom half of the Army's own aptitude test, according to David Chu, undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness. More high school dropouts are now recruited than five years ago. There are fewer "washouts," meaning the Army is holding on to more borderline soldiers, critics say.

The upshot, says military sociologist Charles Moskos of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., is that the Pentagon and Congress should be aiming higher than recruiting by video game. By drastically changing recruitment benefits to pay off college loans, he says - and even offering short-term enlistments - the Army could tap into the 1.2 million college graduates looking for work every year, few of whom now enlist.

"If we enlist 10 percent of college graduates, all our recruiting woes would be over," says Mr. Moskos. "Twenty percent of my students said they'd consider the Army with the right benefits."

But if the Army needs athletes and high-tech wizards from middle-class America, they did find them in Matt and Doug Stanbro. Though the brothers are very different - Doug is a football letterman, Matt a self-described computer geek -they say "America's Army" had a common appeal. They spent nights playing games with their friends, barking orders through headsets. They say the game prepared them at least in part for what the real Army embodied.

On the other hand, they acknowledge, some things can only be learned by crawling through the South Carolina woods with a rifle: Poison ivy, for one, doesn't translate well to the screen, Matt says.

Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, predicted the market would be limited to 10% of its potential until someone figured out a way to deliver ad spots to all gamers, possibly by persuading companies such as Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to make their game machines download information regularly, as TiVo recording devices now do to update television programming schedules.

"There's plenty of money there," Pachter said. "The question is: Is it a hundred million bucks or is it 10 billion?"

The last line in the story says it all: "I don't care," [Marine Sgt. Rick] Carloss said, "as long as he's 17." The Army and Marines are conducting what amounts to a death march on our nation's high school campuses.

Funny thing, in the '60s, kids went to college to avoid being in the military, now the military is preying on the soon-to-be dropouts in high school to become part of the "team." I wonder what fantasy the recruiters are using to make fighting on the front line in Iraq seem sexy? More than 1,540 deaths and counting, boys and girls.

Mark Storhaug
Pacific Palisades

The article about recruiters in high schools reminded me of a conversation with my Marine grandson. He served briefly as a recruiter, but when I asked him if he'd like to do that again, he said, "No. The recruiters tell you the good part of being a Marine. But there's a part they leave out. They don't tell you that just about everywhere in the world they send you, the people there hate you and hate America."

His disappointment in our nation's reputation and behavior is much like the deep sadness I feel when I read that four more soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday — killed by those people who hate America. Recruiters need to tell these high school students both sides of this grim reality.

Greta Pruitt
La Crescenta

How disgusting, these vultures and their tactics in recruiting at low-income high schools. Let them go to the Washington, DC, area and recruit the sons and daughters of the warmongering president and his cronies.

Deborah J. Chandler
Upland

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times | Top

Decades of tradition ended fast and furiously at Churchill Downs.

A day after being freed by a federal judge to wear advertisements, jockeys cut endorsement deals between races Friday while a seamstress frantically sewed logos onto their pants legs. A number of riders will wear ads Saturday in the Kentucky derby for the first time...
----------------------------
(Does this mean that everyone will be jockeying -- literally --for the outside position as they pass the TV cameras?)

"Major League Baseball, never an aggressive marketer, did a stunning about-face wednesday. It announced that it would promote the new movie "Spider-Man 2" at all games on the weekend of June 11-13, including placing a Spider-Man symbol atop the bases....

... the New York Yankees recently added advertising signs in the dugouts, although those were [described] as revenue-enhancing measures rather than marketing tools."
---------------------------------
Almost!
But, the consumer watchdog group Commercial Alert urged fans to boycott the movie and all Sony products, Columbia being a Sony Pictures Entertainment company.

"It's time for baseball fans to stand up to the greedy corporations that are insulting us and our national pastime," Commercial Alert executive director Gary Ruskin said in a statement released by his organization Wednesday. "We urge everyone not to buy Sony products, and not to see Sony movies, especially 'Spider-Man 2.'

"How low will baseball sink? Next year, will they replace the bats with long Coke bottles, and the bases with big hamburger buns?"
---------------------------------
Baseball Casts Off Spider-Man's Web
By RONALD BLUM AP Sports Writer May 6, 2004

NEW YORK - Spider-Man ads on bases didn't fly with baseball fans.

A day after announcing a novel promotion to put advertisements on bases next month, Major League Baseball reversed course Thursday and eliminated that part of its marketing deal for "Spider-Man 2."

"The bases were an extremely small part of this program," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. "However, we understand that a segment of our fans was uncomfortable with this particular component and we do not want to detract from the fan's experience in any way." ...

The ads were to appear as part of a deal involving Major League Baseball Properties, Marvel Studios and Sony Inc., the parent of Columbia Pictures, which is releasing the movie on June 30. The promotion will go on with giveaways and other ads at ballparks that weekend.

"We listened to the fans," said Geoffrey Ammer, president of worldwide marketing for the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group. "We never saw this coming, the reaction the fans had. It became a flashpoint - the reaction was overwhelming."

"We don't want to do anything that takes away from a fan's enjoyment of the game," he said. "Some people thought it was a great idea, but others saw it as sacrilegious." ....

Many baseball purists denounced the plan, including Fay Vincent, a former baseball commissioner and president of Columbia Pictures. Having watched jockeys earn the right to have ads on their uniforms for the Kentucky Derby, some thought it was a step too far in the increasing commercialization of sports. "I think they made a good decision to change their minds," former commissioner Peter Ueberroth said. "I don't think it makes any sense at all. It's a clutter."

Wendy may not realize it, but in Neopia she's the target of the latest twist in children's marketing — a burgeoning and increasingly controversial business. In the past decade, corporate America's annual budget for advertising products and services to kids has more than doubled, to an estimated $15 billion. The pot of gold: $600 billion in family spending that children under 13 are said to influence, along with $40 billion in pocket money that they spend on purchases from candy to clothes, an amount projected to hit nearly $52 billion in 2008, according to the market research firm Mintel. As many a besieged parent can attest, children's marketing seems to be raining down everywhere, from the Internet to video games to coloring books. And with kids increasingly splitting their time among all manner of media, not to mention extracurricular activities, "marketers are targeting children younger and younger in every way they can," says James McNeal, a children's marketing consultant based in College Station, Texas.

Is the ad parade getting out of hand? Consumer advocates say it is, claiming that an explosion of ads for junk food, aimed primarily at children, is fueling the obesity epidemic. (The food industry's lobbying group, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, denies that claim, saying there's no definitive data linking advertising to obesity.) Another issue: that the lines between advertising, entertainment and educational materials are increasingly blurring, as you may have noticed if you have seen schooling materials like the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Counting Fun book or toys like the Play-Doh George Foreman Grill. "It's unfair. Children don't even know they're being advertised to," says Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood.

Even professionals devoted to marketing seem concerned about some of the brand-building tactics. According to a poll of youth marketers conducted by Harris Interactive earlier this year, 91% of those surveyed said that kids are being pitched to in ways that they don't even notice, and 61% believe that advertising to children starts too young. At what age do they think it's O.K.? A majority of the pros in the poll think it's appropriate to start advertising to kids at age 7, even though they feel that children can't "effectively separate fantasy from reality in media and advertising" before age 9 or make intelligent purchase decisions before 12. A recent study by the American Psychological Association confirmed that children under 8 have a tough time distinguishing ads from entertainment. But don't expect those findings to kill the product-placement party. "Kids' marketing just grows as businesses realize that children have more purchasing potential than any other demographic," says consultant McNeal, who advises FORTUNE 500 firms on marketing policies.

Sites like Neopets are taking the old concept of product placement to sophisticated new heights. With 11 million users, 39% under 13, Neopets is one of the Internet's most popular and "stickiest" destinations. Users visit on average for 3 1/2 hours a month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. But unlike sites that generate ad revenues by inserting pop-ups or banners along a page that are easily identified (and ignored), Neopets offers marketers what company CEO Doug Dohring calls "immersive advertising." The company integrates ad messages into the site's content, creating "advergames" for clients based on a product-or brand-awareness campaign. The company then tracks site activity and provides demographic and usage data to customers, offering a window into kids' purchasing habits.

At the Neopia food shop, for instance, Uh Oh Oreo cookies, Nestle SweeTarts and Laffy Taffy candy (along with unprocessed foods) have occasionally been available to buy with Neopoints to feed virtual pets. Kids can also win points by watching cereal ads or movie trailers in the Disney theater. And they can fatten their Neopoints accounts by participating in marketing surveys. Universal Pictures recently ran a survey on the site to assess and build awareness of a forthcoming kids' movie, Two Brothers. Another pitch on the Neopets home page: click through to a website called Dealtime.com and compare such consumer electronics as Sharp and Sony camcorders, getting to know brands in the process.

"It's sneaky," says Clancy Mendoza, mother of Neopets fan Wendy, who forbids her daughter to take the surveys. Even with the more playful features, the marketing messages are seeping through. After Wendy tried a Neopets game with a tie-in to Avril Lavigne's new CD, she told her mom she wanted the music. After an advergame's launch, says Neopets' Dohring, surveys have shown double-digit increases in the number of users who have tried a product embedded in the game.

At company headquarters in Glendale, Calif., posters of Neopets dolls decorate the walls, and dozens of young workers sit in cubicles programming and creating content for Neopia. Speaking in a conference room, Dohring emphasizes that branded content is less than 1% of the site's total. "We're not trying to be subliminal or deceive the user. We label all the immersive ad campaigns as paid advertisements."

But critics say websites like Neopets enable advertisers to skirt TV-industry practices that alert children to commercials with bumper announcements like, "Hey, kids, we'll be right back after these messages." Neopets Inc. press materials declare that advertisers can embed their brands "directly into entertaining site content." The practice isn't illegal, and Dohring says Neopets complies with the Children's Online Privacy Act, which bars companies from collecting personal information from Internet users under 13. Still, by embedding brand characters into games and activities, the ad "just goes unnoticed by the child, much less the parent," says McNeal, a critic of such practices. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa plans to introduce a bill this week that would reinstate the Federal Trade Commission's ability to issue rules on unfair advertising to children (the ad industry now abides by voluntary guidelines).

Whatever one's opinion of it, the Neopets franchise is expanding. Neopets Inc. has revenues of more than $15 million annually and is turning a profit after just four years in business, says Dohring. Neopia now exists in nine languages, including Chinese (Dutch is next). The company is growing with a line of merchandise, including stuffed animals, toys and a trading-card game. Fueling that growth is Dohring's advertising pitch, which has attracted some major, if reticent, clients. Disney, General Mills and Universal Pictures, contacted by TIME to discuss their business with Neopets, declined to comment. Asked about McDonald's association with the site, Kathy Pyle, the fast-food company's director of kids' marketing, said, "McDonald's wants to be integrated into the online experience. We have been doing it for entertainment purposes, not directly selling." McDonald's, however, is offering Neopets toys in Happy Meals, cross-promoted on the site.

Internet advergaming isn't limited to Neopets. Food manufacturers in particular are luring kids to their brands with similar offerings. Postopia.com, a popular Kraft Foods site, offers a full arcade of games, some (like the Pebbles Quarry Adventure) linked to sweetened cereals and drinks like Kool-Aid. Look closely at the bottom of the home page and you can see the fine print: "We, at Post, want to let you know that this page contains commercial advertising where we mention products we sell."

Plenty of other corporate initiatives are under way to grab kids' attention. WalMart has been drawing kids (and their parents' pocketbooks) to its stores with a marketing concept called "retailainment." In one version last fall, kids visiting WalMart received Bob the Builder coloring books and could go on a "safety scavenger hunt" that led them to the toy, hardware and infant-and-toddler departments. What's going on? Preschoolers are now considered a "highly marketable segment for certain products," says a recent report by MarketResearch.com. Though you probably already know that if you have a toddler in the house

It’s not surprising to see the venues of commercial TV and websites “pitching
it to kids,” delivering pre-school audiences (grocery cart riders, able to
recognize logos and packaging on the shelves, finger-pointing pester-power) to
the advertisers. What is shocking, however, is the saturation of ads in the
previously non-commercial venues of many schools and PBS. Channel One, for
example, now delivers a daily dose of slick ads to a captive audience of over 8
million kids in their classrooms. Pre-schoolers, watching the PBS kids programs
at home, once were exempt from being a target audience. Now, every program has
a set of “proud sponsors” (e.g. McDonalds, Chuck E.Cheese’s, Frosted Flakes,
Juicy Juice) not only with “soft sell” feel-good ads, but also (at PBS.org)
web-based games and links to their “proud sponsors.” I marvel at the
straight-faced mendacity of PBS fund-raisers during Pledge Week when they brag
about presenting commercial-free programs. It’s hard to justify the
corporate-image ads (ADM,SBC,CIT) of the “proud sponsors” of the “Nightly News
Hour” for adults; but, targeting our very young children in their own homes is
beyond the pale. --- Hugh Rank

Mr. Arnold said that Cover Girl had never had a promotional relationship with authors or publishers before. But with "Cathy's Book," he said, "the integration was a no-brainer. We thought we could help out and hopefully become part of the story as well."
Beinggirl.com will begin promoting the book in banner ads on the site in August, Mr. Arnold said, with links to cartoons drawn by Cathy's character. But, he said, the site would strive to "keep the fiction away from reality."

From a marketing perspective, said Michael Watras, chief executive of Straightline International, a New York strategic branding agency, "it's a great concept."

"It doesn't cost the cosmetic company anything," he said. If readers "can get into the character and look up to her in some way, then I think it's a home run."

The authors were perhaps more at ease with the product placement idea because of their own backgrounds in marketing. In fact, the idea for "Cathy's Book" grew out of work the pair did on Steven Spielberg's movie "Artificial Intelligence: A.I." to create a promotional campaign based on planting hundreds of clues on the Web, on cellphones, on billboards and in newspapers, leading people to put the tips together to form a coherent narrative.

With "Cathy's Book," although Mr. Stewart has written a self-contained textual narrative, Mr. Weisman also created a series of clues that are included in a so-called evidence pack that will come with the book in a sealed plastic envelope filled with photos, post-it notes with phone numbers scrawled on them, pages from a date book, birth and marriage certificates and letters. There will also be a business card for a fictional "online consultant" at Beinggirl.com.
Hints to most of these documents are embedded in the novel, which also contains Web site addresses and phone numbers that readers can access for extra material. The telephone number on the book's cover, for example, leads to an outgoing voicemail message from Cathy.

"What we are selling here to the customer or the reader is an experience that transcends the book itself," said David Steinberger, president and chief executive of Perseus, the publisher. "The relationships with Beinggirl.com and Cover Girl are enriching that experience."

Those relationships will be fully disclosed, Mr. Steinberger said. Right on the copyright page, Cathy, in character, thanks Beinggirl.com and Cover Girl for their work to "help me get the message out."

Mr. Stewart said the authors did not include any branded mentions they felt were inconsistent with the existing narrative. "I had strong feelings about the kinds of things I was willing to have in the book and the kinds of things I absolutely was not willing to have in the book," he said.

At one point, recalled Mr. Weisman, Mr. Arnold of Beinggirl.com sent the authors some advertisements for feminine hygiene products and "said 'What do you think about Cathy annotating an existing ad for Tampax or Always?' " The authors drew the line at that. "We said while that might be very funny, we think that would be very far over the edge," Mr. Weisman said.

But some booksellers are concerned that the precedent is an unwelcome one. "I'm not crazy about it," said Carol Chittenden, owner of Eight Cousins, a bookstore in Falmouth, Mass., and the children's book buyer for BookStream, a book wholesaler in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "Once you're under contract to include certain kinds of things, then that narrows the editorial possibilities greatly and has a huge influence over the nature of the writing and the nature of the story."

Mr. Steinberger of Perseus said that so far, the response to the book had been based on the quality of the writing and the novelty of the Web and phone clues. He said the book had already been sold in five foreign countries and that plans for an initial print run of 30,000 had been increased to more than 100,000 copies based on bookseller response. "There's a risk in putting so much emphasis on the Cover Girl relationship that it comes across as a crass commercial project," he said. "But it's not."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times

For Immediate Release Children’s Coalition Raps McDonald’s Supersized Hypocrisy
March 23, 2005
Hip-Hop Songs to Feature Big Macs
 
Today, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) denounced a new marketing plan by McDonald’s to pay hip-hop artists to plug Big Macs in their lyrics.  The fast food giant has hired Maven Strategies to entice rappers to write songs that specifically mention the Big Mac and hopes to have several tracks on the air by this summer.
 
“This campaign undermines McDonald’s claim that they are serious about combating childhood obesity,” said psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint, of the Judge Baker Children’s Center and Harvard Medical School, who noted hip-hop’s enormous popularity with preteens and teens.  “Even as McDonald’s is drawing praise for pushing salads and apples, they are finding new ways to market high calorie standbys like the Big Mac to children.” 
 
Obesity rates have soared among children in recent years and are highest among African Americans, who comprise a disproportionate share of the hip-hop audience.  A report in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine found that due to obesity-related illnesses, the current generation of children may have shorter life expectancies then their parents.
 
The McDonald’s hip-hop ploy is part of a disturbing trend, said CCFC co-founder, Dr. Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood.  “Even as food companies pay lip service to the idea of responsible marketing, they increasingly turn to new and deceitful ways of targeting children.  Listeners won’t know the rappers are being paid to push Big Macs -- these ‘adversongs’ are inherently deceptive.”
 
This is not the first time that Maven Strategies has been employed to peddle harmful products to hip-hop listeners.  Last year, the company paid several rap artists to mention Seagram’s gin in their songs. 
 
For more information on McDonald’s hip-hop plans, please visit: http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/news/articles/mcdonaldsrap.htm