Hey Kids, Your “Energy Drinks” Now Come With Alcohol

We all pick our battles. To me, this is one of them. Rather than dwell on Mojito-flavored chewing gum, or Bacardi Mojito banners and Coors fly-by billboards bombarding our peace at Zuma beach last weekend, or even the absurdity of alcohol glamorama targeting teens with "Cosmopolitan Berry and Margarita Lime Epil-Stop hair remover" in Teen Vogue's back to school issue this … [Read more...]

Eco-Friendly Electronics: Go Green With Your Wired World

It’s ironic that in our youth media culture of “totally wired” teens, eco-enthusiasts haven’t mowed a green path uniting kids’ environmental zealousness with greener gear. The TechSoup blog posts this great new online tool and forum thread which is ultra timely for me, since my laptop LCD screen just fried, and I’m temporarily hooked up to … [Read more...]

It’s the 11th Hour to See the 11th Hour! L.A./N.Y. Premiere Today

Two big premieres lit up the town tonight in Los Angeles, but with tween in tow, I’ll bet you can guess which one got 'first viewing' here. I’ll post about High School Musical2’s integration of the audience via digital engagement later, but immediately want to put out an 'opening weekend' plea for all of our N.Y./L.A. readers to go see Leonardo DiCaprio's … [Read more...]

Shaping Youth Brandwashing Data Is Larger Than Stanford’s Study

“A new Stanford study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (here) demonstrates just how effective food marketing is in changing young children's perceptions.” Gee, ya think? Their study was funded by the biggies, RWJF and Stanford, with research showing “preschool children think that foods that come in a McDonald's wrapper taste better than … [Read more...]

Dumb Like A Fox: Danica McKellar Sells Smarts

Update June 2, 2015 What a difference a half-dozen years makes.Once upon a time I hailed Danica as our first honoree/role model, and profiled her math mission as exponentially positive, selling smarts to those more interested in beauty duty as subversive marketing brilliance to outreach to new audiences.While I STILL feel that was mathlete McKellar’s original intent with “Math … [Read more...]