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Corporate
Practise Anti-Children The basis of this legislation is that young children are not equipped to tell what is advertizing and what is not, and that it is therefore unfair practice. In countries that have adopted this legislation, advertizing aimed at children, selling childrens products, during childrens viewing hours, is forbidden. Its that simple, and it would probably make several multinationals quake in their boots were it to happen here or even more unthinkably, in the US. Parents hate advertizing aimed at their kids. It creates stresses and conflicts within the family, and the most vulnerable families are the most likely to succumb, spending dollars they can least afford. It is health endangering - anorexia, obesity, depression, violence, low self esteem, are all consequent on overexposure to commercial television. Advertizing works by making you unhappy with your life, anxious, and unsatisfied. It sells to you by damaging your mental health. Paedophiles have two characteristics. They love to network and share ideas for seducing children. And they don1t see anything wrong with what they do. Likewise the brochures for the Kidpower conference are sickeningly blatant - creating an emotional relationship with your under twelve consumers promises the marketing director of Hasbro. Pester power. Exploring the purchasing dynamics between mums and children in the supermarket offers Logistix Kids Getting into the mindset of the under twelves. Molesters would feel right at home here. The growing world sentiment against corporate reaching into our homes, schools, and souls of our children, is well founded when you look at the motives and values of this conference. To counter it effectively we have to examine the corporate animal in a very clear light. On the wall of my office I keep a framed copy of the contract made between the actor Sylvester Stallone, and a large US tobacco company, in which Stallone agreed to smoke cigarettes in five movies, including the famous Rambo movie, in exchange for half a million dollars in payment. Rambo, as you1ll remember, was the macho role model for millions of little boys. An M16, a headband, and ... a cigarette. Without the need for blatant advertizing, this little investment ensured that millions of boys especially in the third world, took in the wordless message that smoking was tough and cool. The World Health Organization tells us that one in eight of all people alive today will die as a direct result of smoking. This contract is in essence a death warrant, reading it is like reading the architect1s plans for Belsen. But to focus on Sly Stallone or Big Tobacco is to miss the point. This is normal behaviour for any corporation, and any product, because a corporation is a machine for making profits. There isn1t anyone in a corporation paid to ask the should we do this? questions. A colleague of mine once interviewed the world CEO of a dairy foods multinational, a company whose prolonged marketing of baby formula in the third world (where it could not be safely prepared) had lead to millions of infant deaths annually for over a decade. This man frankly told the interviewer that he simply had no choice, his shareholders expected him to maximize profits, and that was his job. Corporations are intrinsically amoral, and therefore as big a threat as Naziism or Communism ever were. Thats why a corporatized, globalized world is a recipe for human suffering and environmental destruction on a scale we have never seen. Why we need reregulation, not deregulation, since corporations are currently sewing up international treaties that will let no elected government stand in their way. This is why protests in the S11 tradition will become a regular event in our cities, and as in the Vietnam era, we will respond with some sympathy as well as some alarm that it has come to this - civil disobedience and riot - because once again our government is mixed up in something big and bad and over its head. A recent development, ably dissected in Naomi Klein1s superb book NoLogo, is the care-washing of products and corporations, to give them a feel good glow without actually making a scrap of difference. Jonathan Krause from the charity World Vision - a rather incongruous inclusion in the Kidpower Conference program, sadly appears to be representing this trend. His paper offers a better way to get parents on your side by delivering the values outcomes they seek for their kids. Expect much token charity in the next decade- a cent for every doll sold going to some starving children far away, with no mention of the twelve year old semi-slaves who actually paint and assemble those dolls. Or the possibility that those starving children1s plight was actually caused by first world greed and consumption in the first place. Consumption that Kidpower is all about fostering in your toddler before they can even walk Advertizing works through unhappiness - by making you unhappy with who you are, and what you have. Then by tying your needs,hopes and insecurities, to a product, and deceiving you that buying it will deliver what your heart desires. Which it never does. For adults, all this is just seduction, and we learn to recognize it, though not enough that it isn1t one of the biggest industries in the world. Children, however have not yet built up these defences. The presenters and researchers who give the tips and hints for manipulating little kids, at the KidPower (read KidsUnderOurPower) conference, know this to be so. The sheer wrongness of it doesn1t seem to have struck them. But then, a seat at the conference costs $2,200, so perhaps the profit helps to ease their pain. Steve Biddulph is the national patron of Young Media Australia, the childrens media monitoring and lobby group.
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