Following is the text of the letter:

Dear [Book Review Editor],

HarperCollins Children’s Books recently announced it is publishing a new series for children entitled “Mackenzie Blue.” According to news reports, the “Mackenzie Blue” series will be infiltrated with product-placement hidden advertisements and will be designed effectively as a marketing vehicle for big companies.

The author of the series, Tina Wells, is chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which specializes in marketing to children and adolescents.

It is not unknown for works of fiction to advance political and other agendas, but this crosses a line, especially as it is geared toward 8- to 12-year-olds. “Mackenzie Blue” is in the form of a children’s novel. But in reality it is an adjunct of a corporate marketing campaign aimed at impressionable children and adolescents. Its contents have been altered to that end. (Our letter to Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, detailing our concerns, is attached.)

Will you treat this book as a novel to be reviewed, or as an advertisement, which is suitable for discussion in the business pages?

We strongly urge you to choose the latter. Something large is at stake here. There is a difference between a novel and an ad; and if you do not uphold that distinction, then who will?

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman,
Managing Director

Following is the text of the letter:

Dear Ms. Katz,

I am writing from Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that is concerned with excessive commercialism in society, and particularly the impact on children.

We are appalled at your recently announced plans to publish a new series of books targeted at 8- to 12-year-olds featuring the character “Mackenzie Blue.” According to news reports, the Mackenzie Blue series of children’s books will be infiltrated with product-placement hidden advertisements and will be designed effectively as a marketing vehicle for big companies.

We urge you to abandon these plans immediately.

Your news release touts the Mackenzie Blue series for teaching kids and especially girls about how to relate to peers and develop a positive self-image, and helping them build an environmental consciousness.

These purported objectives of the series are totally incompatible with the overriding commercial partnering strategy of the series.

Excessive commercialism in youth culture is undermining kids’ self-esteem, as it substitutes an inventory of what they possess for the developmental challenge of defining who they are. It teaches children similarly to judge classmates and peers based on what they wear and how they appear, interfering with their ability to relate to others based on their unique personalities and to appreciate diverse personalities and styles. Excessive commercialism is heavily correlated with the youth obesity epidemic.  And, of course, the commercial influences and the emphasis on intensified consumption is incompatible with the fundamental ecological challenges facing the planet.

Beyond these specific concerns, marketing to young children is wrong for the fundamental reason that—even in a technology-heavy environment—many kids under the age of 11 do not have the ability to discern advertisements and promotions from entertainment and life experience.  Hidden advertisements, such as product placements, and integrated multi-media marketing strategies make this line-drawing that much more difficult.

Children and adolescents are already assaulted with advertisements on a daily basis—books, of all things, should be a haven from the commercial assault on kids. Books should educate and entertain children, not serve as a vehicle to deliver hidden marketing messages encouraging them to buy a particular brand of shoe or soft drink or cosmetics.

The Mackenzie Blue concept is a horrible degradation of the honorable field of publishing. If there is virtue in the Mackenzie Blue story concept, it will only be redeemed by liberating it from the commercial entanglements your plans seem to envision. We strongly urge you to remove all product placements and eliminate all tie-ins with external advertisers before proceeding with your publishing plans.

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman,
Managing Director

Dear [School Board Member],

I am writing from Commercial Alert , a non-profit organization that seeks to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.

I understand that tomorrow you will consider whether to offer up the children in your school system to predatory advertisers. I am writing to urge you to refuse to allow Bus Radio to deliver a captive audience of Seminole County’s children to advertisers.

Any parent knows that our children are already assaulted by far too many commercial messages and influences. Schools cannot be a perfect haven from commercial pressures, but they should aspire to shield children as best they can. Certainly they should not be accessories to the commercial assault on kids.

Bus Radio likes to tout the notion that its offer of providing radio service for buses, and paying schools for the privilege of doing so, is a “win-win.”

This is a wholly deceptive sales pitch.

Bus Radio is not a social service organization. Its business model involves delivering captive and perfectly age-segmented markets to advertisers. Why would any school official want to be part of such exploitation of children?

Advertising in schools and school property like buses is so inappropriate that even a majority of marketing professionals believes it is wrong. A 2004 Harris poll of youth advertising and marketing professionals found that only 45 percent “feel that today’s young people can handle advertising in schools.” Forty-seven percent believe that “schools should be a protected area” and that “there should not be advertising to students on school grounds.”

This is not fundamentally an issue of whether the ads are age-appropriate from a parent’s point of view, though that itself is no small matter. Schools should be a place for education—to gain knowledge, to acquire a love of learning, to develop and discover one’s own unique personality, to learn how to build friendships and solve conflicts, to internalize community and civic values. Commercial intrusions—already all too present in kids’ lives—undermine virtually every aspect of the educational enterprise.

Every school board member wants to do what’s best for the kids in their district. Bus Radio is a wrong turn for children in Seminole County, and everywhere else. I urge you to reject Bus Radio’s offer.

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman,
Managing Director,
Commercial Alert

US Airways should stop plastering advertisements on plane tray tables and napkins, Commercial Alert, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, said today in a letter to company CEO Douglas Parker.

The marketing company placing ads on the airline company brags that in-plane ads offer unique benefits to advertisers because they reach a “captive” audience.

The letter from Commercial Alert’s Managing Director Robert Weissman urges US Airways CEO Douglas Parker to renounce the exploitation of the airline’s passengers. Considering passengers to be captives is “reprehensible,” the letter says.

Commercial Alert is also urging its members and supporters to contact

The text of the letter appears below:

September 25, 2007

Douglas Parker, CEO
US Airways
111 W. Rio Salado Pkwy.
Tempe, AZ 85281
Fax: 480-693-5261

Dear Mr. Parker:

US Airways boldly claims to put “customers first.” Your website states, “Customer service has always been a priority at US Airways, and we are committed to making every flight count for our valued customers.”

Unfortunately, your marketing deals suggest you are more committed to making every flight count for your valued advertisers.

I am writing to urge US Airways to terminate its exploitation of passengers and to stop plastering advertisements on plane tray tables and napkins.

Brian Martin, CEO of Brand Connections SkyMedia—the company you have allowed to adorn US Airways tray tables with ads from Verizon, Microsoft, Saab and others—has boasted about the in-your-face effect these tray table ads have. “It’s purely captive,” he told Entrepreneur.com. You should find this attitude reprehensible.

Particularly given its acute problems with flight delays and high volume of consumer complaints, US Airways is in no position to show such disrespect for its passengers.

I strongly urge you to remove all advertisements from airplanes and refuse further advances from an advertising industry eager to treat your passengers as captives.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman,
Managing Director

Today’s announcement of more voluntary marketing restraints by the junk food industry reflects the public and political momentum building against junk food purveyors.

But it is not a solution to the marketing-related childhood obesity epidemic.

That the new voluntary standards will authorize the continued television advertising of junk food on “family” programs is enough to show they are inadequate. But the problems go deeper than that; the junk food industry has demonstrated by its actions that it cannot be trusted to self-police.

Childhood obesity is at triple the levels of two decades ago. There’s no doubt that multiple factors are responsible. There’s also no doubt that junk food marketing is a crucial part of the story.

The junk food corporations have made marketing to kids into a business model. Voluntary efforts to scale back are fine, but they are no substitute for mandatory, government rules backed by meaningful penalties and for an end to taxpayer subsidies for advertising targeting kids.

We call on the next Congress to swiftly pass the Parents’ Bill of Rights, to give parents the legal rights to raise their own children with less corporate interference and subversion.

--

The Parents’ Bill of Rights is available at http://www.commercialalert.org/pbor.pdf.  A key provision in the Parents’ Bill of Rights is the Children’s Advertising Subsidy Revocation Act, which would revoke the federal tax deduction for advertising to children under 12 years of age.

Commercial Alert is a nonprofit public health and consumer group.  Our mission is “to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy. For more information, see http://www.commercialalert.org.

BART is reportedly considering placing televisions on trains or in stations.

“Bay area residents have plenty of opportunities to watch TV,” said Weissman. “They need an opportunity to converse, read, listen to their own music, or just think in peace, and without the distraction of television.”

According to Nielsen Media Research, the average American household watches 8 hours and 14 minutes of television per day. The average American over aged two watches four hours and 35 minutes a day.

BART officials have suggested adding TV would be a revenue earner, with no cost to the system.

In fact, said Weissman, “the expected revenues would be relatively tiny—1 percent of the system’s annual budget, at the upper end.”

“And the costs would be enormous: a huge imposition of video advertising on BART riders. BART riders, who pay to get on trains, shouldn’t be turned into a captive audience for advertisers.”

News reports indicate that BART officials are considering permitting up to one-third of TV airtime to be devoted to ads.

In a complaint filed with The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), Commercial Alert called on DISCUS to recommend that Jack Daniels and its parent company, Brown-Forman, withdraw sponsorship of the program. The sponsorship arrangement is being labeled “branded entertainment:” Jack Daniels will co-promote the series, appear in advertisements for the series, and the whiskey brand will be prominently featured in the program.

“Based on the material on AMC’s web site, it appears that the sponsorship arrangement will violate numerous provisions of the industry’s self-regulatory marketing code,” says Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert. Among these provisions are prohibitions on alcohol marketing in association with depictions of irresponsible drinking and intoxication, and overt sexual activity or sexually lewd images or language.

The Commercial Alert complaint acknowledges that withdrawal of Jack Daniels’ involvement with the series would pose difficulties. “Still,” it argues, “there is no reason why a company should be able to escape normal enforcement and implementation of the Code simply because it chooses to violate the code in such brazen manner that curing the violation would cause non-trivial complications for a major television series.”

If DISCUS declines to recommend termination of the sponsorship arrangement, the complaint argues, DISCUS should urge that Brown-Forman/Jack Daniels pay for counter-advertisements by independent public health organizations, to be aired before, after and at the mid-point of each episode of “Mad Men.” The complaint also calls on DISCUS to adopt a forward-looking prohibition on future “branded entertainment” ventures by hard liquor companies.

“It is important to emphasize that our position on the Jack Daniels/Brown-Forman-"Mad Men” deal in no way undermines or threatens anyone’s artistic integrity,” says Weissman. “Our complaint in this instance is not with the portrayal of heavy alcohol consumption, or even with the glorification of such heavy consumption; it is specific to industry sponsorship of and entwinement with such portrayals. Quite different issues are raised where artists choose to depict such activities in the absence of industry sponsorship.”

The full text of the complaint is below:

Robert Weissman
Commercial Alert
P.O. Box 19002
Washington, DC 20036
http://www.commercialalert.org

June 20, 2007

DISCUS Code Review Board
1250 Eye Street, N.W., Suite 400,
Washington, D.C. 20005
Attn: Lynne Omlie,

Re: Complaint Regarding Brown-Forman/Jack Daniels sponsorship of the AMC television network series “Mad Men”

To the DISCUS Code Review Board,

I am managing director of Commercial Alert, a non-profit organization whose mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.

I am writing to lodge a complaint against Brown-Forman for violating The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States’ (DISCUS’) “Code of Responsible Practices for Beverage Alcohol Advertising and Marketing.”

Apparent Violations of the Discus Responsible Marketing Code

Brown-Forman is the sponsor of “Mad Men,” a new series to be aired on the AMC cable network, starting July 19, 2007.  Mad Men tracks a fictional advertising agency around 1960, and revels in its characters’ heavy smoking and drinking. The series is sponsored by Brown-Forman’s brand Jack Daniels. The sponsorship arrangement reportedly involves both product placement and other promotion of Jack Daniels.

We have not been privy to previews of “Mad Men,” but AMC has extensive material about the program on its website. The first scene shown in the “Sneak Peek” for the program demonstrates that sponsorship by a liquor company cannot be squared with the DISCUS Code.  In this scene, one of the main characters of the show visits a female colleague. Swirling a drink in hand, he laments trouble at work (somewhat ironically, the challenge of selling cigarettes in light of health evidence). Within moments, the female character rips open her shirt and the two begin kissing, before the preview cuts away to comments from the series’ writer/producer.

It is not clear from this limited clip if the drink in this scene is identified as Jack Daniels, but this point is not particularly important, since Jack Daniels is a sponsor of the entire series, and the entire series is, as the New York Times describes, “branded entertainment.” In that context, this scene violates Discus Code 25, which states that “advertising and marketing materials should not contain or depict … overt sexual activity” (or graphic or gratuitous nudity; promiscuity; or sexually lewd or indecent images or language). The clip seems representative of the program, not exceptional, so it is likely not unique.

The promotional material on the AMC site also makes clear that the series will represent sexual harassment at the workplace, which it holds to be reflective of the era. It seems very likely that this will involve sexual lewd or indecent language (nor is it at all clear from the promotional material that this behavior will be shown in an unfavorable light), and quite possibly will involve degradation of women (in violation of Code 22).

The very prominence of heavy drinking in the program suggests it is likely to feature and glorify excessive and irresponsible drinking. The New York Times reports, for example, that the first episode of the program features excessive drinking at a bachelor party. This seems to plainly violate Discus Code 13:

“Beverage alcohol advertising and marketing materials should not depict situations where beverage alcohol is being consumed excessively or in an irresponsible manner. These materials should not portray persons in a state of intoxication or in any way suggest that intoxication is socially acceptable conduct, and they should not promote the intoxicating effects of beverage alcohol consumption.”

We are limited in our ability to identify all the ways in the series violates the code because it is not yet available for viewing. But the material on the AMC web site suggests the possibility Jack Daniels’ sponsorship of the series violates several other provisions of the code, among them:

• 15. Beverage alcohol advertising and marketing materials should contain no claims or representations that individuals can attain social, professional, educational, or athletic success or status as a result of beverage alcohol consumption.

• 17. Beverage alcohol advertising and marketing materials should not portray beverage alcohol being consumed by a person who is engaged in, or is immediately about to engage in, any activity that requires a high degree of alertness or physical coordination.

• 21. Beverage alcohol advertising and marketing materials should reflect generally accepted contemporary standards of good taste.

• 23. Beverage alcohol advertising and marketing materials should not contain any lewd or indecent images or language.

It may well be that other code provisions are violated, as well.

Remedies

The DISCUS board should request the opportunity to preview “Mad Men” immediately, rather than wait until it airs to evaluate this and any other filed complaints.

If in fact the Jack Daniels sponsorship of “Mad Men” violates the DISCUS code, as it certainly seems to, following precedent DISCUS should recommend that Jack Daniels withdraw its sponsorship, and apply pressure that Brown-Forman/Jack Daniels do so. As the open letter in the most recent edition of the Discus Semi-Annual Code Report notes,

If a provision of the Code has been violated, the Board urges that the advertisement be revised or withdrawn.  Throughout the decades, there has been 100% compliance by DISCUS members with the Board’s decisions and overwhelming compliance by non-DISCUS members.

We acknowledge that the nature of Jack Daniels’ sponsorship of “Mad Men,” and the integration of the marketing campaign with 13 hours of television programming, poses unique challenges. Still, there is no reason why a company should be able to escape normal enforcement and implementation of the Code simply because it chooses to violate the code in such brazen manner that curing the violation would cause non-trivial complications for a major television series.

If the Board does find that Jack Daniels’ sponsorship violates the Code, but is unwilling to recommend that Brown-Forman withdraw its sponsorship and marketing arrangement, then it must search for the best alternative remedy. Unlike most complaints to the Board, we are able to file this complaint before the marketing has occurred. It is incumbent on the Board to take proactive measures at least to reduce the harm caused by Jack Daniels’ sponsorship. Failing a willingness to urge withdrawal of the sponsorship and marketing arrangement, it is our recommendation that Jack Daniels/Brown-Forman be urged to pay for counter-advertising. The company should be urged to allocate funds so that independent alcohol control organizations are able to prepare extended video segments that would appear before, at the mid-point of, and after each episode of “Mad Men.” The company should also be required to pay for the advertising cost associated with airing such segments.

The Board must also develop a forward-looking response to the Jack Daniels/Brown-Forman foray into branded entertainment. Here, it is clear what should be done: DISCUS should adopt a uniform prohibition on branded entertainment. There is no plausible scenario in which such arrangements may be undertaken that are compatible with the DISCUS code.

As a final note, we want to clarify matters about our views on industry advertising. First, we do believe all hard liquor advertising should be eliminated from television. Second, we wish to emphasize that opposing hard liquor advertising has nothing to do with prohibitionist impulses; it does recognize the special nature of alcohol as a product, the reality that advertising affects cultural attitudes and consumption practices, and the scale of the public health problems attributed to alcohol abuse. Finally, we want to preemptively emphasize that our position on the Jack Daniels/Brown-Forman-"Mad Men” deal in no way undermines or threatens anyone’s artistic integrity. Our complaint in this instance is not with the portrayal of heavy alcohol consumption, or even with the glorification of such heavy consumption; it is specific to industry sponsorship of and entwinement with such portrayals. Quite different issues are raised where artists choose to depict such activities in the absence of industry sponsorship.

Mad Men begins airing July 19. Given the time sensitivity of this complaint, we look forward to your rapid reply.

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman,
Managing Director

According to the New York Times, the AMC cable network has announced a 13-week run, hour-long dramatic series. “Mad Men” is inextricably linked with its sponsor: Jack Daniels. The show, about the booming advertising industry in the 1960s, will prominently feature characters referring to the brand by name, displaying the signature bottle, and even drinking the whiskey in an irresponsible manner.

Jack Daniel’s national brand director told the New York Times, “we would like to convey the message of responsible consumption,” but a young executive drinks to excess at his bachelor party in the very first episode.

Alcohol abuse among teens and adults is a serious public health problem, resulting in more than 100,000 deaths every year in the United States, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol consumption should not be promoted on television.

In June 1996, an industry-wide, voluntary ban on the televised marketing of hard liquor was broken by Seagrams. It’s past time for a mandatory ban.

But until then, television networks should not collude with alcohol marketers to hawk hard liquor. AMC should cancel “Mad Men” immediately.

May 21, 2007

Dear [School Board Member],

I am writing from Commercial Alert, a non-profit organization that seeks to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.

Tonight you will consider whether to offer up the children in your school system to predatory advertisers. I am writing to urge you to refuse to allow Bus Radio to deliver a captive audience of Jefferson County’s children to advertisers.

Any parent knows that our children are already assaulted by far too many commercial messages and influences. Schools cannot be a perfect haven from commercial pressures, but they should aspire to shield children as best they can. Certainly they should not be accessories to the commercial assault on kids.

Bus Radio likes to tout the notion that its offer of providing radio service for buses, and paying schools for the privilege of doing so, is a “win-win,” and some Jefferson County school officials have echoed this language.

This is a wholly deceptive sales pitch.

Bus Radio is not a social service organization. Its business model involves delivering captive and perfectly age-segmented markets to advertisers. Why would any school official want to be part of such exploitation of children?

Advertising in schools and school property like buses is so inappropriate that even a majority of marketing professionals believe it is wrong. A 2004 Harris poll of youth advertising and marketing professionals found that only 45 percent “feel that today’s young people can handle advertising in schools.” Forty-seven percent believe that “schools should be a protected area” and that “there should not be advertising to students on school grounds.”

This is not fundamentally an issue of whether the ads are age-appropriate from a parent’s point of view, though that itself is no small matter. Schools should be a place for education—to gain knowledge, to acquire a love of learning, to develop and discover one’s own unique personality, to learn how to build friendships and solve conflicts, to internalize community and civic values. Commercial intrusions—already all too present in kids’ lives—undermine virtually every aspect of the educational enterprise.

Every school board member wants to do what’s best for the kids in their district. Bus Radio is a wrong turn for children in Jefferson County, and everywhere else. I urge you to reject Bus Radio’s offer.

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman,
Managing Director,
Commercial Alert

Tel: 202-387-8030

Responding to the growing obesity epidemic among children—and associated risks for serious health concerns such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and elevated cholesterol and blood pressure levels—the report recommends not only that junk food be excluded from the cafeteria line, but that vending machines, snack bars and other food provision options in schools be limited to relatively healthy foods.

Addressing the problem of providing quality school food is no longer a scientific problem, if it ever was.  It is now a political problem.

The steps forward are clear.

First, the Department of Agriculture should enforce its own competitive foods rule, which prohibits public schools from selling “foods of minimal nutritional value” during mealtimes in school cafeterias.

In response to a petition from Commercial Alert, it has refused to do so.

Second, proposals by Senators Tom Harkin (D – IA) and Lisa Murkowski (R– AK) to improve school nutrition standards should be adopted immediately. The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2007 would update standards, and apply them to food sold outside school meal programs, on the school campus, at any time during the school day. This is the vehicle for mandatory rules to implement the Institute of Medicine recommendations.

Four years ago, then-President of Coca-Cola Enterprises, John Alm, said flatly, “The school system is where you build brand loyalty.”

The grain of truth in that abhorrent remark is that behaviors learned in school do affect kids for the rest of their lives.

Schools can be tough on kids. But they should be sanctuaries from predatory peddlers of sugar and fat. Our kids should come home with report cards, not heart disease.

It’s past time for junk food to be expelled from our public schools.