HUGH RANK "RETIRES"
AS CRITIC OF DOUBLESPEAK
QRD July, 1991
Hugh Rank, who twenty years ago organized the Committee on Public
Doublespeak to call attention to language manipulation by advertisers and politicians,
has announced that he has retired as a critic of advertising and is now "for
rent" to the highest bidder, promoting a new gospel of Ubiquitous Commercialism
(UC). "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," said this University Professor
of English at Governors State University in Illinois.
Born Again
Rank described his amazing turnaround as almost a "born again" experience.
"Suddenly I realized that I was out of step with the rest of the country,"
he said, "that my drummer was too different. So I'm back in the saddle
again, with my shoulder to the wheel and my nose to the grindstone, ready to
lead the crusade for Ubiquitous Commercialism in the schools. We're so close
to the saturation point now that I think my efforts may help put UC over the
top."
Rent-a-Rhetorician
Specifically, Rank has announced plans for organizing Rent-a-Rhetorician
™, a nationwide network of professors working together with corporate sponsors
in an effort to bring more commercialism into their classrooms. He intends to
introduce more ads into the schools, not only in the halls and on the walls,
but also in the classroom and on the blackboards, podiums, and desk tops, and
even in the textbooks.
"Only high-class ads," he emphasized, "nothing controversial.
I'm simply applying the best ideas from Channel One and from the Public Broadcasting
System (PBS)* in a way that will help make our colleges more cost-efficient.
Educational institutions are simply wasting too much time and too much space
now."
For example, Rank says that the traditional ten-minute break between classes
could be utilized to show on campus television monitors seven minutes of soap
opera updates packaged together with three minutes of commercials. Background
music during classes can be easily piped in to most classrooms, he says. "Easy
listening music that most offices have. With ads embedded. Soft sell. We want
to prepare students for a real-world work place."
" Textbooks and novels have too much wasted space,"
Rank claims, "especially in the unused 'white space' in the margins and
between paragraphs, where advertising copy could easily be inserted. Maybe we
can't add much on a Faulkner page, but we should be able to utilize a lot of
the wasted space in Hemingway books, not to mention all that wasted space in
poetry books."
Tasteful Classroom Ads
However, the core of Rank's Rent-a-Rhetorician™ program is the active
involvement of the professors themselves, using their prestige and influence
to deliver the commercial messages in the classroom. "It will be very tastefully
done," Rank says, "just soft-sell stuff, just feel-good ads, and image
builders. At the beginning of each class, for example, the professor can announce
that 'This class is made possible by a grant from the XYZ Pharmaceutical Company,
maker of fine drugs for over fifty years. When you think of drugs, think of
XYZ.' "
Rank anticipates that most of his corporate funding will come from the major
oil and chemical companies as part of their contribution to environmental education.
Within the classrooms themselves, especially in history and literature courses,
Rank claims that too much time is being wasted with discussing multiple possible
interpretations. "Professors can save everyone's valuable time if we just
give students the Right Answer quickly and efficiently."
Rank envisions a scenario in which the professor can briefly introduce a few
new ideas or use a few new words, stirring up anxieties. To relieve these, the
professor will pause for dramatic effect (and to reduce ad clutter), and then
intone: "The Right Answer is being brought to you through the courtesy
of the HAL Corporation, proud sponsors of the Right Answer for over five years.
When you think of the Right Answer, think of HAL," or some such phrasing
similar to that used by PBS to identify their sponsors. "High class stuff,
only," he promises, "British accents."
Other Classroom Advertising
Other possibilities for advertising in the schools under Rank's new program
include classroom "wall ads" that can be sold to national advertisers
by the year or semester, an efficient plan for space utilization. Blackboard
ads, however, because of their temporary nature, will be more appropriate for
sales by local advertisers and will have a daily rate schedule.
Desk top graffiti will be replaced by product slogans and corporate logos, giving
new meaning to the term, "Endowed Chairs." Students will be recruited
as "campus reps."Their graffiti chores can possibly be a sideline
for the existing reps who currently plaster ads on the campus bulletin boards.
The Rent-a-Rhetorician™ concept represents a dramatic change in
Rank's thinking. In the past, this consumer advocate and critic of language
manipulation had called for "ad-free zones" on children's television
programs. He had even used the term "child molesters" to describe
those advertisers who target four and five-year-old children. He has long chided
schools, texts, and teachers who don't treat ads as "units of persuasion"
and teach kids how to analyze them.
More recently, Rank has criticized Christopher Whittle's
Channel One program (which now delivers to its advertisers a captive
audience of five million kids in 8,000 schools) as a "serious escalation"
of commercialism in the classroom. In fact, Rank had just finished writing a
new edition of his book The Pitch: How To Analyze Advertising
specifically as a response to Channel One to help students and teachers analyze
the language and patterns of ads. Rank's recent conversion to Ubiquitous Commercialism
apparently came too late for his unrepentant publisher to stop the July release
of this edition of his book.
My press release (above) was picked up by syndicated
columnist Bob Greene (below)
How Coca-Cola can save our colleges
-- by Bob Greene, Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1991
Professor Hugh Rank, who teaches English at Governors State University, used to
be appalled by how advertising had taken over virtually every area of American
society. Now, though, he's ready to give up.
"Everything in my classroom is for sale," he said. "Including me.
I'm inviting sponsors to apply."
The professor, like most Americans, has seen every available inch of space in
our country gobbled up by advertisers. If you watched the recent U.S. Open tennis
tournament, you were reminded once again that space on athletes' clothing is for
sale to the highest bidder; one of the most lucrative things a person can be these
days is a walking billboard.
When a private company began piping customized, commercially sponsored TV newscasts
into school classrooms, Professor Rank was disgusted. "But now I've changed
my mind," he said. "We're so close to the total saturation point with
sponsorship that maybe my effort will put us over the top."
Thus, his idea-~-to allow corporations to buy advertising in college classrooms.
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em " he said. "We at the nation's
universities ought to think about selling ad space on our classroom lecterns,
on the blackboards, on the walls of our classes and on our clothing.
"Everyone is always worrying about where the money is going to come from
to fund higher education," he said. "This is the obvious answer. Think
of all that classroom space being wasted. I'm sure that sponsors would line up
to buy space in such a respected academic environment."
The professor has some specific ideas:
"There is a blackboard at the front of every classroom," he said. The
students look at it all during the lecture. You
could put a Coca-Cola logo on the top of it very easily, and bring in a nice sum."
"Why not let corporations sponsor the classes themselves?" he said.
"At the beginning of every lecture I could remind the students,
'This class is made possible by a grant from Mobil Oil.' "
"Part of teaching involves asking questions of the students in class,"
he said. "It would be fairly easy to sell commercial time right before
I provide the answer. For example I might say to the class: 'In John Steinbeck's
"The Grapes of Wrath," what was the final destination of the displaced
farmers?' And as the students waited to hear the answer, I could say: 'The right
answer is being brought to you by Delta Air Lines.' "
"We could sell space on the front of the blue books -- the blank essay
books the students use to write their final exams," he said. "On the
front of the blue books we could have a beer company logo, and the words: 'After
the test, relax with a Schlitz.' "
"And of course we could wear advertising messages and logos on our clothing,"
he said. "If race car drivers can cover themselves with advertising, why
not us?"
"Advertising space could easily be sold in textbooks and works of literature.
At the end of a lot of paragraphs, there's blank space where the sentence doesn't
fill out the whole line. The words in books are printed in black ink. So we
could let sponsors use red ink to fill out the rest of the unfilled lines. A
student would finish a paragraph, and then read a short message from Burger
King before he starts the next paragraph."
On a basic level, of course, Professor Rank knows that his idea is ludicrous.
He has long been very much against the complete commercialization of American
society; he is the author of a book called "The Pitch," which is intended
to explain to people just how easily they are manipulated in our modem, ubiquitously
sponsored world.
But on another level he fears that students would actually accept the idea of
professors and classrooms sponsored by corporations -- accept the idea, and
think it was prestigious. If a student saw that his or her professor was sponsored
by, say, Pepsi, the student might actually hold the professor in higher esteem.
After all, if a big multinational corporation thinks enough of a teacher to
stick a logo on him, then the teacher must be pretty good.
"That's the problem,' he said. "You can't really make fun of this,
because it has taken over our culture so completely. You have students paying
$20 to buy T-shirts with the logos of big companies on the front. The students
are actually paying money to walk around wearing corporate advertisements on
their chests. It's hard to be satirical about something that people see as normal."
So Professor Rank's idea might conceivably catch on. And if it does, the official
mottos of some of our greatest universities -- "Truth Through Knowledge,"
"A Lamp of Wisdom" and other such sentiments -- may be replaced by
a much simpler slogan: "This Space for Rent."
After Thoughts (2004) -- Public
Television and the PTA
* Alas, reality outdoes irony.
When these unkind words about the intrusion of commercial image-building ads into
PBS were written a dozen years ago, I was thinking only in terms of the "soft
sell" and image ads directed at adult viewers (e.g. ADM and SBC
mentioned appreciatively as "sponsors" of the nightly News Hour).
Today (Jan.,2004), even the cartoon program for kids (e.g. "Dragontales")
are "brought to you by" Chucky Cheese and Kellogg's Frosted Flakes
(They're Grrrreat!) as just a small part of PBS's current ad policy targeting
pre-school kids.
Pre-school programs on PBS -- trusted by most
parents -- made a big change when they started accepting "sponsorship"
money, creating brief, introductory "feel good" ads associating the
program with the product sponsor. During "Pledge Weeks" PBS still claims
that they are "ad free," but this is a deceptive ploy, based on legal
technicalities. They don't have "advertisers," they have "proud
sponsors." These sponsors don't use a hard-sell approach, they use a soft-sell.
Their target audiences are pre-schoolers and their parents. Preschoolers can't
read, but they can quickly recognize logos and packaging -- and associate good
things together. And preschoolers have a lot of "pester power."
Long before they're able to read, preschoolers are able to recognize the sponsors'
product logos and packaging in the grocery store as they ride in the shopping
cart accompanying Mom and telling her what they want.
Check out pbskids.org online: at the
bottom of the program pages (Arthur, Clifford, Dragon Tales, etc.) are the logo
links to their "proud sponsors" (Juicy Juice, Chuck E.Cheese, McDonalds,
Alpha-Bits, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, etc.) where fun and games are also available
on their commercial website. Furthermore, parents and kids are urged to join the
PBS kids-clubs (thus, adding to the consumer data bases of the advertisers).
Today, 20 different preschool TV programs rely on the income from licensing contracts
for books, toys, games, and videos related to the programs. "Networks are
not thinking about children as little beings to love and nurture," writes
Professor James Steyer of Stanford, in his book The
Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children.
"They're thinking about them as little consumers to sell plush toys to."
Also, since then, many (too many) little news articles
have appeared about schools renting their outside walls (near freeways)
for ads, a Texas school on a flight-path near an airport renting its roof top,
school districts with ads inside school busses, more hallway ads, more
scoreboards and more athletic outfields with ads; "Homework Hot Line"
telephone services, with commercials, for parents and kids; and many local school
websites taking advantage of the "free" services offered, in return
for placement of ad banners and popups.
If the schools and school boards do nothing about this
increasing commercialization of the classroom, maybe the good old PTA --
Parent Teachers Association -- will help. (Ooops, I forgot:
Coca Cola is a "proud sponsor" of the PTA. And, according
to the New York Times and BagNews,
"John Downs, Coke’s senior vice president for public affairs and chief
lobbyist, had been given a seat on the PTA’s board."
For more, see: Commercial Alert
(an activist group) and Commercialism
in Education Research (an academic research center). For daily alerts
about such commercialism, sign up at the google.com news section , using
the key terms: Kids, Schools, Ads, Advertising.
More
After Thoughts (2005) -- How
can satire exist in this context of this kind of reality?
Body Billboards The Stunts of
a Streaker Have Spurred Marketers to Capitalize on Body Advertising
Advertisers: Their skin
is available
First the church, then the steeple, then 'your logo here'
- "in Frankfort, Germany, the scafforlding of the famed 18th-century
Gothic steeple of Bartholomew Cathedral now sports a Panasonic poster."
More After Thoughts (2006)
More After Thoughts (2008)
Top
Body Billboards
The Stunts of a Streaker Have Spurred Marketers to Capitalize on Body Advertising
By Eric Noe | ABCNEWS.com | July 7, 2004
Crashing parties and eluding security guards with only his pasty skin as protection,
British streaker Mark Roberts is known to create a stir, not to mention a laugh
or two, from the audiences observing his foibles. Turns out his antics might be
billable, as advertisers are exploring the benefits of using human bodies as billboards.
Roberts was convicted of trespassing and fined $1,000 in Houston last week for
charging the football field nearly naked during halftime of January's Super Bowl,
but he wasn't too concerned with the expenses.
That's because his court costs were covered by the on-line casino GoldenPalace.com
in return for painting the company's logo across his ample midsection, he said.
Exposing the logo to thousands of fans during his impromptu midfield jig, Roberts
embodied a new form of advertising and possibly a new vocation — the living,
breathing marketing ploy.
Having streaked 383 public events by his last count, Roberts is internationally
famous enough to have filmed a TV commercial for a Spanish soccer team and posed
for an underwear billboard in England.
But it's the cheap, light-hearted publicity from his naked romps that seems to
attract the most attention. Roberts said he has been contacted by well-known companies
like BMW and Siemens to possibly promote their brands in future streaks, and he's
currently looking for a manager to handle his marketing possibilities in the United
States
"What I've discovered is that my body is turning into an advertising board.
It wasn't my intent, but I hope eventually I can make some money out of this,"
he said.
This type of exposure is becoming attractive to advertisers wary of sinking big
money into traditional television and print ads that may or may not be reaching
their target audience.
With the rise of the Internet and the dispersal of television viewers amid hundreds
of broadcast and cable channels, marketers are facing a smaller potential audience
and left with the task of finding more creative ways to reach customers.
"With the increased media clutter, capturing the imagination of consumers
is getting more and more challenging. Smart marketing teams are trying all sorts
of new things to reach their audience," said Mary Hilton, spokesman for The
American Advertising Federation, a trade organization for ad industry.
Human Billboards
Some are sending tattoo-adorned human billboards into sporting events or popular
tourist sites to promote their brands. The idea is that once the seed has been
planted in a unique way, curiosity alone will motivate people to find out more
about the products. The marketers hope consumers will tap into their own personal
networks to spread the word.
It's certainly cheaper than a prime-time television commercial, which can climb
to $1.5 million for a 30-second Super Bowl spot. The potential upside of reaching
such a large audience with these unusual stunts appears to be catching on.
Familiar names like Toyota and Dunkin' Donuts have experimented with body advertising,
banking that it doesn't necessarily take a multimillion-dollar national ad to
get people's attention. And it doesn't necessarily take a naked Englishman, either.
Toyota has used body art to kickstart a word-of-mouth ad campaign for its new
Scion car line. In April, the Scion marketing team paid a group of people to wander
Times Square in New York for several hours with various Scion-related insignias
printed prominently on their foreheads. The temporary tattoos featured the name
of Scion's new "tC" sports coupe, the price of the car, the address
for the Scion Web site or the simply the Scion brand name.
Aside from saving the exorbitant expense of a traditional commercial or billboard
ad, the plan was to start a buzz with the inexpensive, yet memorable forehead
tattoos. The young consumers targeted by the ad scheme then presumably spread
word of the off-beat advertisements through the less traditional stream of cyber
space.
"We think that's how Generation Y finds out about things — through word
of mouth or the Internet. They're very tech savvy," said Scion spokeswoman
Ming-Jou Chen. "They're all about discovery, and they communicate with their
friends a lot through Web logs and chat rooms. This is a just a different way
to create a buzz."
Times Square was ideal for this type of campaign, Chen said, because of the steady
parade of tourist traffic. After just a few hours of exposure, the marketing team
hopes people returned to home towns across the United States and started the Scion
chatter.
"What's more important to us is who we reach and how we reach them, not just
how much we spend," Chen said.
Guerilla Marketing
The body billboards are a form of "guerilla" marketing, according to
the AAF's Hilton, who said the practice capitalizes on off-beat cultural trends
to carve a niche market outside the traditional mainstream.
"Tattooing is big right now, and it seems like a fun way to get a brand name
out and get people talking," she said.
Dunkin' Donuts used a similar technique to reach a group of young consumers notorious
for indulging late night doughnut cravings. Last year the company recruited volunteer
college students to sport forehead tattoos with the Dunkin' Donuts logo at several
arenas hosting NCAA basketball tournament games.
Like the Times Square experiment, the basketball arenas were a fit for this type
of campaign as heavy foot traffic ensured the ads were seen by thousands attending
the games. These types of events require very little in the way of man-power or
financial commitment from the companies.
The body-branding practice is still not widespread, and Hilton said most guerilla
techniques are so new that no one has studied their effectiveness. But with such
little risk involved there seems to be little deterring others from trying it
— at least until people like Roberts start charging as much as traditional
corporate spokesman for their billboarding duties.
Roberts, who raises and donates charity money for each of his streaks, insists
that he never thought of the marketing possibilities when he began streaking 11
years ago. Exposing himself was merely a humorous way to get attention, and that
remains his motivation today, even when crashing a virtual national holiday like
the Super Bowl.
"The main thing is I get a kick from making people laugh. And to hear that
roar from 70,000 people is a great feeling," he said.
For the advertisers, that type of "exposure" is priceless.
Advertisers: Their
skin is available
The man who sold ad space on his forehead isn't alone.
Others are willing to tattoo body parts with company logos for a price.
By Justin Dickerson | Los Angeles Times |March 8, 2005
Forget television and radio spots, print ads and those pesky Internet pop-ups.
The latest in advertising is right under — or in this case over — your
nose. Meet the human billboard
.
Last month, Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha offered primo ad space on EBay —
his forehead. The winner would design a temporary tattoo to be branded onto Fischer's
brow for all to see for a month's time.
"As I go around town doing my thing … your domain name will be plastered
smack dab on my 'noggin," Fischer said in his EBay listing, dubbing himself
"average Joe."
The winner of Fischer's forehead, Westlake-based SnoreStop, which manufactures
snoring remedies, couldn't be more excited about the advertising opportunity.
"I saw him on 'Good Morning America' and then, bam! I said, 'I need to have
that guy,' " SnoreStop Chief Executive Christian de Revel said.
Revel forked over $37,375 to Fischer for him to sport the big red letters of the
SnoreStop logo on his forehead, with "It simply works" right below it
in black text.
Now, Fischer is known as "the forehead guy." Last week, after advertising
on his website, http://www.humanadspace.com , he found a new client, the online
casino Goldenpalace.com, which paid $5,101 for a temporary spot on his forehead.
Fischer is one of a growing number of people around the country and in Canada
who are offering temporary or permanent advertising space anywhere on their bodies
for the right price.
The forehead is the most popular place for these ads because of its unavoidable
visibility and oddness factor that demands attention. Other popular body parts:
arms and hands, and the stomach of a pregnant woman.
Tattoo advertising is just one part of a growing trend of placing ads everywhere,
including the sanitation disk holders in urinals and the bottom of a hole on a
golf course, said Jim Ellis, a dean at USC's Marshall School of Business. "It's
kind of the ultimate ad — the human body," he said.
Trovon Moore, a 24-year-old electrician in Washington, D.C. who was getting his
third tattoo recently at Grafixx Tattoo, said he wouldn't want to be a "24-hour
commercial."
"A tat is supposed to mean something in your brain," Moore said. "I
can look at what I'm going to get today every day and say, 'Yes, this represents
me.' "
The payoff
But SnoreStop is thrilled with its investment in Fischer's forehead. On the day
SnoreStop won the auction, its website received five times as many visits, and
since then Web sales of the product have also shot up five times. Revel reports
that in-store sales are up by 50% as well.
SnoreStop has also since been approached by about 150 Andrew Fischer-wannabes,
each offering marketing ideas as diverse as permanently changing their name to
"Mr. SnoreStop" for the same money the company paid Fischer or serving
as SnoreStop's foreign forehead correspondent.
"I'd like to offer you Canada," Tony Devlin, of Ottawa told Revel in
an e-mail, requesting $5,000 a month for his services.
Sorry, Tony — Canada is already covered. A Vancouver company, TatAd.com,
launched in November and has already expanded to the U.S. with about 1,000 members
(SnoreStop however isn't one of them). TatAd.com serves as a middle man between
sponsors who want to slap their logo in permanent tattoo form on someone's body
and the people eager to sell themselves as human billboards.
Members of the site create profiles in which they post not only personal information
but also company logos they'd specifically like to get tattooed on themselves,
and where they'd be willing to have the tattoo.
"We don't want to go slapping tattoos all over Joe Schmo," TatAd.com's
CEO Kyle Johnston, 21, of Vancouver, said. "We want to turn this into an
effective means of advertising."
So far, TatAd.com has been involved in the purchase of three tattoos, all on people
who were fond of the trademark being placed on their bodies.
Competition
Aside from the growth of tattoo ad space companies, Fischer's payout has resulted
in a slew of EBay copycats.
They include salesman Joe Tamargo, 31, of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., who's
headed a business venture banking on his EBay notoriety, and failed auctioneer
Chad Lawrence, 28, of Hot Springs, Ark., who hasn't been able to sell space on
his body, even with a one cent starting bid, and even after re-listing his EBay
auction three times.
"I thought it might be a really easy chance for me to make some money to
help my family out," said Lawrence, who offers space on his right arm. Lawrence
said he would use whatever money he earned to pay for the medical costs from his
son's birth and early illnesses.
Others are out to make some major cash.
Tamargo, who garnered 15 minutes of fame from his relatively early EBay auction
that placed PillDaddy.com and SaveMartha.com (as in jailbird Stewart) permanently
on his right arm, saw this new phenom as the perfect business opportunity. He
now has nine sponsored tattoos, which earned him a total of $13,110.
Tamargo attributes his success on EBay to the fact that potential sponsors see
that he is actually getting the tattoos both through his appearance recently on
"Late Night With Conan O'Brien" and through pictures and videos on his
web- site, http://www.livingadspace.com . There's only so far he will go, however.
"You'd have to be totally insane to get a tattoo on your forehead,"
he said. "That's taking unorthodox to the next level."
Even with the success of some, USC's Ellis dismisses the tattoos as nothing more
than a unique form of advertising trying to break through the mass of advertisements
an individual sees daily — a gimmick that won't last with time.
"In advertising, you get between 3,000 and 4,000 ads thrown at you in every
single day, and ad agencies and advertisers will do whatever they can to get through,"
Ellis said.
Fischer doesn't care whether this form of advertising is going to last or not.
For him, it's about easy money and public recognition of a creative idea.
"At the end of 30 days, I just get some rubbing alcohol and it's gone. I
mean, it's not a huge risk," he said. "I've never been in the paper
ever, and now I'm making the front page in Taiwan. As far as this goes, I'm willing
to ride it."
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Top
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
First the church,
then the steeple, then 'your logo here'
By Isabelle de Pommereau | Correspondent of The Christian Science
Monitor | July 13, 2004
FRANKFURT - Over the past decade, giant commercial billboards have changed the
look of many European cities. Whether at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate or Rome's Trevi
Fountain, ads on historic structures have become a key way to finance their repair.
But Germany has taken the trend to new - and controversial - heights. In Frankfurt,
the scaffolding of the famed 15th-century Gothic steeple of Bartholomew Cathedral
now sports a Panasonic poster.
Throughout Germany, churches are renting their facades for commercial messages.
Supporters hail the development as an ingenious fundraising tactic. But critics
argue the move dilutes the sacredness of churches.
"We're not pleased about it," says Raban Tilmann, pastor of the Bartholomew
Cathedral. "This is something we have to endure," he says.
Turning its steeple into high-profile ad space has allowed the cathedral to raise
some 100,000 euros for restoration. But it has also raised serious questions about
the integrity of the church's message in a heavily commercialized world.
"Money is one thing, but the long-term moral danger is something else,"
says Heinz Schilling, a history professor at Berlin's Humboldt University who
specializes on churches.
In Germany, churches are financed through taxpayers, who register their religion
affiliations and pay 8 percent of their income tax to their church.
Revenues fall as buildings age
The system has traditionally provided churches with a protection that they don't
enjoy in other countries. But income-tax revenues have been falling and Germans
have been leaving churches - and their taxpaying obligations - in unprecedented
numbers. That's forced churches to adopt more businesslike practices to generate
revenues, such as regrouping parishes, laying off personnel, and relying on sponsorships.
The first controversial case arose in Berlin when an oversized portrait of German
model Claudia Schiffer, promoting lipstick and shampoo from the French cosmetics
company L'Oréal, wrapped the scaffolding around the 167-ft. bell tower
of Germany's best-known church.
Left intentionally in ruins after World War II, Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial
Church stands as a testimony against war and destruction. But in 1999, cracks
appeared in the bell tower of a modern church built next to the ruins. The church
was on the brink of bankruptcy - so when an advertising firm offered to rent the
scaffolding around the tower for the L'Oréal poster, pastor Sylvia von
Kekulé agreed. Six months of the Schiffer poster financed the $298,000
belltower restoration.
Advertising posters are "a good, clean way of earning money," says Ms.
von Kekulé, who withstood a heated church debate over the issue. Instead
of scaring parishioners away, she says, it's made them grateful.
"We thought, it's not particularly nice, but if it's going to help our church
bells ring again, then it's worth it," says von Kekule. "People often
assume that churches get everything for free. But ... the church has no money."
Local politicians have condemned the ads on churches and other historic buildings.
"People are losing respect," says Berlin councilwoman Dorothee Dubrau.
Even Johannes Krug, pastor of the ad-draped Protestant Marienkirche, says he'd
rather not see ads on the church anymore.
"Advertising plays with people's yearnings - to be younger, get richer, look
better - with financial interests," says Krug. "In the church, we're
responding to a yearning, but we have no commercial interest. I see advertising
as a competition."
Protestant churches have been more open to the idea of using advertising as a
revenue generator than Roman Catholic ones. But now many Catholics see such banners
as nothing more than a lucrative form of sponsorship.
"The trend is for churches to at least think and discuss the issue openly,"
says Henning Stahl of the firm Fubac Media Solution, which installed the L' Oréal
poster on Berlin's Memorial Church. "There's still a lot of reserve and moral
conflict, but the pressure to have church renovation projects take place partly
with such financial inputs is greater and greater."
Despite an outcry from parishioners, the Mainz Cathedral rented a portion of the
scaffolding in 2001 for a giant advertising poster for a clothing store. "It
was a very good spot; the banner could be seen from the other side of the Rhine
River," recalls Heinz Heckwolf, who oversees restoration of the Catholic
Cathedral.
The Cologne Cathedral, too, could be an advertiser's dream. Classified as a UNESCO
historic monument, it is Cologne's top tourist attraction, drawing between 20,000
and 30,000 visitors daily. Its steeple, 515-feet high, dominates the old city.
Its scaffolding offers the ultimate billboard canvas.
"We've been offered immense sums, gigantic sums of money," says Barbara
Schock Werner, chief architect of the cathedral, where renovation has been going
on for the past 750 years. Over the past three years, "all the big firms
have knocked on my door. Our answer is clear: We don't want it. There has to
be a place that's free from commercial thought."
Officials in the diocese of Cologne, though, are more pragmatic. Martin Struck
of the diocese says parishes may be "forced" to use advertising to preserve
church heritage.
In Düsseldorf, Wolfgang Haertel, pastor of the Catholic St. Martin, is now
talking with a major advertising firm. But before any firm puts its name around
the church tower, which is in dire need of restoration, "we want to know
... who's behind the product, who supports it," says Mr. Haertel. Mr. Schilling,
the historian, says the dangers far outweigh financial benefits. In the long term,
he says, commercial banners could make churches look like any other building,
meaning they could lose their sacred, protected place as the heart of a community.
"Advertising on the TV Tower in Berlin is one thing. But the church is something
different, the surroundings of a church is something different," Schilling
says. The sight of commercial messages plastered on a church steeple could "scare
away parishioners, and won't bring those who are far from the church any closer."
Easier than fundraising
Before they opted for the advertising campaign on the cathedral, officials in
Frankfurt had tried fundraising. "It brought money, but it incurred costs
and it was a lot of work," recalls Gerhard Landmann, who is in charge of
church affairs for the city. "Because of the difficult economic situation
we're in, we felt we had to do it. Refusing it would have been irresponsible."
"When in other cities, the churches themselves judged it was acceptable,
we thought, 'why not us?' " he says.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor.
Web publisher's ads offer textbook case
for cost-cutting
By Justin Pope ASSOCIATED PRESS August 16, 2006
Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds of dollars, but for some courses
this fall, students won't pay a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads
for companies including FedEx Kinko's and Pura Vida coffee.
A small Minnesota startup called Freeload Press will offer more than 100 titles
this fall -- mostly for business courses -- free of charge. Students, or anyone
else who fills out a five-minute survey, can download a PDF file of the book and
store it on their hard drive to print.
The model faces big obstacles. Freeload doesn't have a group of well-known
textbook authors across a range of subjects, and it lacks the editorial and
marketing muscle of the "Big 3" textbook publishers -- Thomson, Pearson
and McGraw-Hill -- in the $6 billion industry. Its textbooks don't come with
bells and whistles, such as online study guides that bigger publishers have
spent millions developing to lure professors, who assign textbooks and are the
industry's real customers.
The St. Paul company's numbers are modest so far: 25,000 users have registered,
and 50,000 books have been downloaded for courses at schools ranging from community
colleges to the University of Michigan. But the company says it is rapidly adding
titles and will have 250,000 textbooks and study aids in circulation by next
year. It also has signed agreements with three small, specialty publishers to
make their textbooks available the same way and is in negotiations with others.
Current customers "are primarily business instructors, so they understand
there's a quid pro quo here," said Tom Doran, Freeload's chief executive
officer. "When we walk over to the social sciences and humanities, I expect
there will be more [resistance]."
As to objections that textbooks shouldn't have ads, Mr. Doran notes that ads
already appear in academic journals. He says Freeload's ads won't be distracting,
will be placed at natural breaks in the material and won't push products such
as alcohol or tobacco. Schools with other concerns could customize their standards.
For instance, Brigham Young University, founded by Mormons in Utah, could nix
ads for caffeine products.
What Freeload has going for it is arriving at a time when textbook publishers
are under pressure to moderate prices. A government study found textbook prices
have risen at twice the rate of inflation since 1986 and that the average student
at a four-year college in the 2003-04 academic year spent $900 for books and
supplies.
A new Connecticut law requires that textbook sellers tell professors what their
books will cost students, and other states are considering similar measures.
Cost complaints come not just from students and parents but also teachers. A
2005 study by the National Association of College Stores Foundation found that
65 percent of students don't buy all the required course materials, which means
many probably aren't learning the material, either.
Students "are saying, 'To heck with it. We'll try to wing it,' "said
Jack Ivancevich, a longtime University of Houston professor who helped found
Freeload.
Publishers answer criticism by saying textbooks are expensive to produce and
note they are clobbered by the rapidly expanding secondary market for resales
in bookstores and on the Internet. Publishers get nothing from those sales,
so they essentially have to recoup their investment in one year's worth of sales.
The industry also is exploring ways to use technology to cut distribution costs
and prices. Thomson, for instance, is making "Ichapters" of textbooks
available, similar to the ITunes model for music. But so far, publishers have
resisted selling ads.
Susan Badger, chief executive officer of Thomson Higher Education, said
her company tested the idea with focus groups, in biology, but the professors
were adamantly opposed.
A Canadian subsidiary of McGraw-Hill briefly rolled out an ad-based model, but
dropped the plan last year.
Mr. Doran says McGraw-Hill's experiment failed because it didn't use
the ad revenue to reduce prices enough to get students' attention. As for faculty,
Mr. Doran said, he realizes not everyone will go for it.
Ultimately, whether Freeload changes the industry or fades away probably will
depend on its ability to attract popular textbook authors. Fordham University
professors Frank Werner and James Stoner had each written several finance textbooks
for traditional publishers, but after their latest was dropped by one company
after a merger, they took it to Freeload.
"I was pretty disgusted with the basic textbook model," Mr. Werner
said. Textbook authors, he said, often waste time making pointless revisions
just so publishers can justify putting out new editions.
"That didn't seem like an ethical thing to do, and it seemed like
a ... waste of time," he said, adding there is no need to do that with
Freeload.
The professors at the New York university assigned the Freeload book to their
class last year and said it was a hit. The students include "lots of working-class
kids trying to get through college," Mr. Werner said. "To ask them
to go to the bookstore and spend $150 is pretty wasteful."
Top
Cash-strapped teacher sells ads on tests
By Jason Hanna - CNN - December 3,2008
Story Highlights
California calculus teacher had budget for classroom supplies cut
Parents or businesses can sponsor exams with small ad on first page
Teacher Tom Farber expects to raise $1,000 with ads this school year
Farber, education officials hope stopgap measure doesn't become the norm
(CNN) -- In tests for teacher Tom Farber's high school class, students can demonstrate their mastery of calculus and find out where to get braces or even a haircut.
Squeezed by classroom budget cuts, the Rancho Bernardo High School teacher is selling ads on his exams to cover the costs of printing them.
"It raises money for the teachers and it's amusing for the kids, so it seems like a win-win," said Luke Shaw, 18, a student at the suburban San Diego, California, school.
Parents and administrators also praise Farber, 47, for his creative classroom funding, but he doesn't want it to become the norm.
"My intention is, [selling ads] is a stopgap measure," said Farber. "I don't want to be doing this year after year."
Instead, he says, government must do more to help educators provide what students need.
Farber started letting parents and local businesses sponsor tests this fall after learning budget cuts would limit his in-school printing allowance -- tracked by the school's copy machines -- to $316 for the year. The cost of printing quizzes and tests for his 167 students will easily be more than $500, he said.
That meant Farber, whose courses prepare students for the Advanced Placement exam, would have to give fewer or shorter tests, or find money. Farber, who says 90 percent of his students got a 5 -- the top score -- on AP exams last year, said skimping wasn't an option.
"It has to be a certain quality, or they won't be ready," he said.
So Farber, who says he'd never asked for money from parents in his 18 years of high school teaching, pitched the ad idea to parents at a September back-to-school night. For checks made to the math department -- $10 a quiz, $20 a test or $30 for a final exam -- they could insert an inspirational quote -- their own or someone else's -- or a business advertisement at the bottom of the first page. Watch how teacher came up with ad idea »
Of the seven to run so far -- one per test or quiz -- five were quotes, and two were ads from local businesses connected to the parents or someone close.
"Brace yourself for a great semester! Braces by Henry, Stephen P. Henry D.M.D.," read one of the ads in small type at the bottom of a quiz's first page.
Farber said orders took off after recent media reports. He's collected more than $300, and he believes he'll top $1,000, with some ad buyers paying more than required. All amounts beyond his shortfall will cover colleagues' printing costs, he said.
Farber said students and parents have gotten a kick out of the sponsorships.
Student Scott Robison, 18, said: "I liked it because all the teachers complain about budget cuts, and he did something about it. It hasn't hurt in any way."
Luke Shaw's father, Jay Shaw, said he wants to sponsor a test next semester.
And while Jay Shaw praised Farber's idea, "It's just sad it came to the point where he needs to do that," he said.
Farber said he doesn't want quiz ads "to become the standard."
"What I'm doing now is ... dealing with the economic situation and making sure kids get what they need," Farber said. "Teachers shouldn't have to scrounge for funding. To me, this is what our government is for, to provide necessities, and that's why we pay taxes."
But California's budget crisis has forced Farber's school district, Poway Unified, to cut costs, district Superintendent Don Phillips said.
The California Federation of Teachers says the state cut more than $4 billion in education spending this year. Phillips said that when the district sought to chop $11 million from its $265 million annual budget, it wanted to keep teachers but cut other areas. Among the things to go was 30 percent to 40 percent of Poway schools' materials spending -- including copying.
Phillips praised Farber's ad idea as creative. But he said district officials are weighing whether to set guidelines, especially for business ads.
Farber said he'd prefer to keep ads to local "mom-and-pop" operations. He's accepting one from hair salon Fantastic Sam's, noting that although it's part of a chain, the store that's buying the ad is locally owned.
Farber and Phillips said they don't know of any Poway teachers wanting to replicate the ad idea, but they said educators there have long spent out-of-pocket for supplies.
Susan Carmon of the National Education Association said a 2003 study on the issue found U.S. teachers spent an average of $450 of their own money for school resources.
"You can only imagine -- with tighter school budgets in almost every state this year -- that this number can only get higher," Carmon said.
Fred Glass, the California Federation of Teachers' communications director, said things could get worse for teachers in the state, with California considering $2.5 billion in mid-year education cuts.
Glass said he hopes Farber's ad selling "will underscore for disinterested observers that this [funding shortfall] can't go on."
Glass said he wouldn't like to see any classroom ads. "The student needs not to be distracted by anything on the test. This is not instructionally sound," he said.
But he said he doesn't blame Farber.
"This teacher shouldn't be put in this position," Glass said.
To those who don't like his idea, Farber suggests asking legislators to better fund education or writing a check to a school.
But he said most of the feedback has been positive.
"One person said, 'Too bad you're not a bank, because you might qualify for $700 billion,' " he said. "I thought that was pretty clever."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/12/03/teacher.ads.on.tests/index.html
? 2008 Cable News Network
Top
Trust Me
:-)
Back to Top |
Author | Home
| "Z" | What's
Wrong