Kids & Digital Marketing: Let’s Turn This Tanker Around

Before I founded Shaping Youth, I spent years writing for ocean liners, travel accounts and all kinds of ‘high end consumer goods.’ It always amazed me watching the little tugs help guide the vessels into port, and I learned a lot about ‘trim tabs,’ rudders, and engineering momentum.

It’s no surprise then, that I chose the Queen Mary to depict the behemoth media mandate that Anastasia Goodstein of Totally Wired alludes to in her excellent op-ed in BusinessWeek, “Let’s Rewrite the Rules for Kids’ Media.” It’s a must-read if you missed it. At the risk of over-simplification or sounding like a Rodney King quote, I echo the need for outreach between child advocates and industry so that we can all ‘just get along.’

Digital media holds the promise and potential to shift our trim tabs toward a more positive course… one with a favorable impact on youth, building bridges rather than barriers. I’m a big fan of the concept of Anastasia’s ‘mashups’ (2008 national in July!) which bring together a wild amalgamation of participants in the media/marketing sphere from industry moguls to academics, nonprofits, and corporations tracking the next big ‘thang.’

The perceived polarity of attendees literally ‘mash up’ conversations that NEED to transpire in order for the divisiveness of special interest groups to purposefully find common ground. (S.Y. Tween article here)

Granted, I often feel like I’m caught in a game of ‘red light green light’ when I attend those events, agreeing and disagreeing at the drop of an idea, but I’m a strong advocate that media and marketing content can become a vital part of the ‘solution’ rather than be demonized as the ‘problem.’

Shaping Youth has been engaging powerhouse thinkers and youth themselves to put some brainpower behind “best practices” to determine how we can shift the cultural zeitgeist in a healthier direction…

I’m excited to join Anastasia’s Facebook group on Revitalizing the Children’s Television Act for the Digital Age, but moreover, I’m thrilled to hear she’s thinking of an adjunct summit to the July 2008 mashup to put some conference energy into these issues. (like the Sandbox Summit brought forth micro-focus on kids’ digital toys and games at CES which MC Milker reported on for us here…)

As a bit of a maverick cyclebreaker, (a writer/producer and branding specialist turned nonprofit) I can tell you I might as well don a black cape and Snidely Whiplash moustache when speaking to some parent education groups about media management once they find out I have 25 years in “the business.”

How are they to know I specialized in name generation for start-ups or helped brand cancer diagnostic firms, or educational technology? We need to rid ourselves of “good vs. evil” stereotypes straight out of casting central, rather than have brand-marketers painted as a bunch of nefarious no-goodniks.

Media and marketing pros are often parents too, and have a vested interest in remaining on the Dudley Do-Right side of the tracks, team-building for a common cause for children rather than conducting sieges on the hearts and minds of kids.

In digital gaming terms, I see us all as a gigantic MMORPG, (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) where we need to unite the various characters on one ‘multiplayer platform’ to hear multiple opinions and voices and be heard.

I strongly feel Anastasia’s on the right track tackling the overhaul of the Children’s Television Act, which is sorely needed, and I’d add that parents, child advocates, and industry pundits all need to come into the conversation in order to hash out a workable model in ‘mashup’ mode.

I always hear, “what about the parents?” Where are the parents? Why aren’t they ‘doing their job?’

Well…Parents are facing surround sound on multi-leveled platforms of media and marketing and quite simply, are outgunned unable to be ‘everywhere at once.’ (and some don’t even have a clue as to where to begin to instill digital media literacy and savvy)

I’m not granting parents a full ‘hallpass’ mind you, I’m simply saying that even someone as media savvy and digitally ‘on it’ as our own advisors (myself included) are hard-pressed to stay ahead of the game based on the sheer magnitude and influx of media and marketing influence.

Shaping Youth is working hard to innovate and educate both youth and parents alike using some fun counter-marketing media applications, but even conveying best practices, it’s like a pinball machine… Zing! Ping! Ka-ching!—

—Industry and technology keep launching new balls into the game, dinging parents wherever we aren’t looking, whether it’s on the ‘third screen’ of mobile social, advergaming, or virtual worlds.

If profiteers would at least take the ethical Hippocratic oath to ‘do no harm,’ parents could focus on media literacy components rather than washing off the sludge from polluted cesspools of sexist behavioral cues, normalizing toxic objectification, misogyny, racial/gender stereotypes and mean-spirited bullying for ‘fun and profit.’

I’m extremely sympathetic to parents who are being pummeled to an exhausted pulp trying to stay one step ahead, undermined with contrary messaging or vapid values. That’s why I believe in ‘buy-in’ from the industry itself…

We can (ok, must!) align and challenge powerhouse thinkers to wield the media/marketing sword with accountability and responsibility.

A proactive role in creating digital content that yields the promise and potential of the medium to embed healthier behavioral cues would help too…I’m eager to take some of our own content into virtual worlds to create a ‘living lab’ of media literacy…

Yeah, I know, it’s easy to see why marketers of certain products and behavioral cues are goosey about being caught in our crosshairs; for our critical analysis and counter-marketing is far from subtle. (we use ‘lift and reveal’ tactics for media literacy akin to the successful ‘truth’ campaign/teen anti-smoking blitz)

But the reticence goes both ways…those interested in ‘sponsoring’ us are always held to a high level of scrutiny from the marketing/branding side too. (that’s why I haven’t taken a dime yet, and remain a pauper 😉 That said, I know there are plenty of industry colleagues who are on the exact same page, joining and supporting us in the desire for a massive media mindshift.

It’s in ALL of our best interest (kids and adults alike!) to trust, collaborate, meld ideas and offer solutions instead of scoldings, responsibility rather than a gazillion regulations…Call me Pollyanna if you want, but I know we can align this consortium with the ‘good guys’…and there are many.

Frankly, if CARU, industry watchdogs, and corporations were successfully implementing “self-rein” we wouldn’t need to be “counter-marketing” at ALL!

Believe me, as a creative director, I’d MUCH prefer collaborative reason on all sides of this conundrum, using digital media’s vast potential to engage youth in powerfully compelling ways…

Uniting rather than tearing down humanity…

Sharing ideas in open source solutions rather than protecting profits in competitive fiefdoms and sealing off entrepreneurial ideas…

Finding exciting, productive ways to cross-pollinate with marketing alliances for a win-win, which has proved effective time and again…

Cynics can make snide comments about ‘do-gooders and ideologues,’ but I’ve found that most of them rarely do their homework when it comes to media analysis…

Sharp Ad Age writers like Richard Rapoport have been reporting time and again that we’re doing society (and profitability) a great disservice producing detrimental advertising that’s snarky and mean. (Yo! Richard, wanna join our board/industry consortium?)

I’m always reminded of my brother’s pilfered comment about how it’s “easier to follow a parade than a funeral.” So make it positive, uplifting, in short, “market hope.”

Whether it’s consumer efforts like the piece I’m writing about Hallmark’s Product Red in Africa, or Randy Lewis, the Walgreen’s executive in South Carolina that has created change from within his role at Walgreens as a model for the rest of the nation of what corporate conduct ‘can be,’ (ABC news reports on how this one superstore focuses on “abled rather than disabled”...to shift the tenor universally)

These ‘baby steps’ need wildly applauded for corporate replication…

A few ‘trim tab’ adjustments and we can tweak and shift the entire course of the conversation, steering with an ethical compass, in a forward-thinking, logical direction…putting public health before profit, kids’ well-being ahead of media/marketing agendas.

No blame games. (fingerpointing on purchasing power) No lame excuses. (it sells) No “us vs. them.” Just oceans of change by setting the right priorities…(ok, last metaphor I promise, but I’m in good company here…)

Buckminster Fuller described the massive Queen Mary as a metaphor for ‘trim tabs’ of personal empowerment and leadership.

The huge ship goes by…then comes the rudder and the tiny little miniature gear at the edge of the rudder…a small trim tab.

“Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all….an individual can be a trim tab….society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether, but if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.”

I really, really like that.

It’s a much less daunting (and doable!) method for “rewriting the rules” for children’s media and marketing.

One voice can (and does) make a difference. Even when it misses the original target…To turn this tanker around without more spillage and pollution, we’ll need to make adjustments to those trim tabs and leave a wake of positive change…

Ideas? Thoughts? Best practices?

You onboard?

Visual credits:

Queen Mary Photo by Gary Wayne,
on his film location/celeb site Seeing Stars

Pinball Wizard: “Clik Chic” Photographer/Flickr)

Do No Harm graphic: Northern Sun

Buckminster Fuller Graphic: John Gushue’s blog

Dudley & Snidely graphics/Google/wikipedia