Branding & Consumerism

Julia Bluhm’s Plea To Curb PhotoShop Sparks Change at Seventeen Mag

July 8, 2012 by Amy Jussel 5 Comments

July 8, 2012 No secret the 'world according to teen magazines' is abysmal for girls, and we've seen mega-stats, studies and fact sheets about the impact on tweens and teens, (KFF pdf here) but as the adage goes... "People don't change when they see the light; they change when they feel the heat." We can thank 14-year old Julia Bluhm for sparking that bonfire. In the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advertising, Branding & Consumerism, Consumerism, Counter-marketing, Emerging trends & STEM, Growing up too soon, Marketing Shaping Youth, Media Literacy, Nutrition & Wellness, Positive Picks, Pro-Social & Positive Picks, Sexualization & Body Image, Shaping Youth, Stereotypes & Diversity Tagged With: adolescent body image, Ann Shoket, beauty myth, body ideals, Body Peace Treaty, Change.org, do no harm, Early-Sexualization, girls self esteem, girls-self-worth, Julia Bluhm, Keep It Real, media impact on girls, Media-Kids, media-literacy, mental health, Miss Representation, National Eating Disorder Awareness, NEDA, Photoshop models, photoshopping body image, preteen-health, preteen-self-esteem, Seventeen Magazine, socioemotional health, SPARK, spark change, Take Back Beauty, teen depression, teen magazines, Teen Vogue petition, teens-media, thinspiration, visual literacy

Mattel’s Manipulative Monster High Marketing Machine: Unkind.

June 15, 2012 by Amy Jussel

June 15, 2012 Last year when I wrote about Mattel’s vampy campy Monster High dolls I purposely didn’t even name their brand, hoping it would quietly fizzle and bury itself in the outcry of parents tired of sexploitation, sassy, rude, mean behavioral cues sent to kids, blatant consumerism and vapid values.When Mattel tried to backpedal from the toxic messages in their webisodes … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advertising, Branding & Consumerism, Consumerism, Damaging Drek, Emerging trends & STEM, Growing up too soon, Interactive Games, Marketing Shaping Youth, Media Literacy, Misogyny & Racism, Product Placement, Sexualization & Body Image, Shaping Youth, Stereotypes & Diversity, Vapid Values Tagged With: anti-bullying, Bailey Shoemaker Richards, big media, brandwashed, brandwashing, Bratitude, Brattitude, Bratz, bullying, business ethics, Buyology, CCFC, childrens rights, Clawdeen, corporate accountability, corporate responsibility, crap detection 101, critical thinking, damaging toys, Daughters, Does Monster High Teach kindness?, Dr Jennifer Shewmaker, Emily-Anne Rigal, girls-self-worth, Goodwashing, halo effect, Hasbro, in-school marketing, kids media influence, Kind Campaign, Mattel, mean ghoul, mean girls, media mindfulness, media-literacy, Miss Representation, Monster High Dolls, Monster High's New Low, neuroscience of shopping, objectification, parenting girls, Peggy Orenstein, PigtailPals, preteen-health, preteen-self-esteem, Pro-social product placement, product propaganda, Pussycat Dolls, Sexed Up Toys, Sexualization, sexualized childhood, So Sexy So Soon, SPARK, spark change, spot the spin, targeting tweens, toxic cues to kids, tweens, unhealthy products, WalMart, worst toys

Graduation, Prom, Pressure, Stress? Keeping Up With The Joneses

June 1, 2012 by Amy Jussel 2 Comments

June 1, 2012 Personally, I don’t think 8th grade and ‘cocktail dress’ should be uttered in the same sentence, but alas, there are entire websites ratcheting up the ‘kids getting older younger’ (KGOY) effect of marketing mania turning ‘tweens’ into 8th grade glamorama Disney divas with little regard for kids’ socioemotional health and developmental milestones. As 8th grade … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advertising, Branding & Consumerism, Consumerism, Emerging trends & STEM, Growing up too soon, Marketing Shaping Youth, Media Literacy, Shaping Youth, Vapid Values Tagged With: 15 minutes of fame, 8th grade graduation, 8th grade proms, affluenza, age compression, bragging rights, Bucket List, Celebrity worship, commencement, creative asks to prom, cult of celebrity, culture of celebrification, Curse of the Good Girl, developmental milestones, faux intimacy, Generation Diva, grad night, graduation parties, graduation spending, Junior Prom, KGOY, Mamarazzi, media mindfulness, Media-Influence-Kids, milestone mythology, milestones, night to remember, parenting in a celebrity driven society, pomp and circumstance, Pop culture impact on kids, prom comes of age, Sexualization, socioemotional health, sparksummit, starstruck celebrification, virtual stage

Visa Spending Survey Invalidated: Stats Are Bogus, Yet No Retraction?

May 30, 2012 by Amy Jussel 1 Comment

May 30, 2012 Before we ramp up with the next surge of ‘graduation spending’ stats or infographics citing what ‘media’ deem to be ‘credible sources’ without diving deeper into fact checking, I’d like to ask media pundits, where is our collective knowledge gain? We’ve got far more than 22 pages of Google results citing ‘junk science’ as fact from reputable news organizations … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advertising, Branding & Consumerism, Consumerism, Emerging trends & STEM, Marketing Shaping Youth, Media Literacy, Product Placement, Shaping Youth, Vapid Values, Viral & Buzz Media Tagged With: citizen-journalism, Critical-thinking-skills, David and Goliath, democratic underground forum, Digital Journal, GfKRoper Omnitel, graduation gifts, graduation should not be a fundraising event, graduation spending, journalism, junk science, media-literacy, muckracker, parents aren't completely nuts, prom spending surge, Roper survey, Sheeple, sloppy data, Social Media Pulpit, social-media, Today Show Moms, Visa prom mythology, Visa prom survey debunk, Visa survey bogus, Visa survey on prom costs

Prom Spending Surges? Media Panics, Hype & Critical Thinking

May 19, 2012 by Amy Jussel 7 Comments

May 15, 2015 Update! Great then/now retrospective in the New York Times that spans proms over 60 years, all the way up to current "promposal" shenanigans, spending surges and social media selfies! Enjoy. May 24, 2012 UPDATE woohoo! Called it! Validation happy dance! Today Show notes HUGE Visa survey inaccuracies in this blurb-> "Prom Spending Myth" but no one is seeing it … [Read more...]