DISNEY OFFERS REFUNDS ON BABY EINSTEIN VIDEOS

The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood is Victorious! Their successful campaign to persuade Disney to give refunds to parents who purchased Baby Einstein videos has become a huge international story. Media coverage includes a front page story in The New York Times ("No Genius in Your Crib? Get a Refund"); stories on Good Morning America and the CBS Evening News; and articles in hundreds of newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. Parents in other countries are now demanding their money back.

Many, including | THE EYE |, have virally spread news about commercialism for babies and children—on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. Screen time for babies and more recently Disney's deceptive marketing has become a hot topic, especially on parenting blogs and listservs. Pediatricians are also planning to distribute information about the refunds in their offices.

The message? Baby Einstein DVDs are not educational. The New York Times called the refunds "a tacit admission that [Baby Einstein] did not increase infant intellect." Now parents will be able to rely on honest information and solid research - not marketing hype - when making important decisions about if and when to let their youngest and most vulnerable children watch screen media. One mom said, "It's great that parents will now have one less thing to worry about. No longer will they feel the pressure to have their babies watch so-called educational videos or risk falling behind."

For a refund go to CCFC's website where there are instructions for how to get a refund, more about CCFC's campaign, a fact sheet on baby videos, and links to all the press coverage.

SCHOLASTIC SELLING KIDS ON TRINKETS, NOT BOOKS

For many of us, Scholastic's book clubs played an important role in our childhood by providing the opportunity to purchase low-cost, high-quality literature in schools. We remember the excitement of thumbing through the monthly flyers to make our selections and the thrill when our orders arrived.

But something has changed. Scholastic's book clubs have become a Trojan horse for marketing toys, trinkets, and electronic media-many of which promote popular brands. A review by Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) of Scholastic's elementary and middle school book clubs found that one-third of the items for sale are either not books or are books packaged with other items such as jewelry and toys.

CCFC reviewed every item in Scholastic's 2008 monthly Lucky (for grades 2-3) and Arrow (grades 4-6) book club flyers. Of the items advertised, 14% were not books, including the M&M's Kart Racing Wii videogame; a remote control car; the American Idol event planner; ("Track this season of American Idol"); the Princess Room Alarm ("A princess needs her privacy!"); a wireless controller for the PS2 gaming system; a make-your-own flip flops kit ("hang out at the pool in style"); and the Monopoly® SpongeBob SquarePants™ Edition computer game. An additional 19% of the items were books that were marketed with additional toys, gadgets, or jewelry. For example, the book Get Rich Quick is sold with a dollar-shaped money clip ("to hold all your new cash!"); the Friends 4 Ever Style Pack consists of a book and two lip gloss rings; and Hannah Montana: Seeing Green comes with a guitar pick bracelet.

The opportunity to sell directly to children in schools is not a right. It's a privilege - and an extremely profitable one at that. Last year, Scholastic's book clubs generated $336.7 million in revenue.

It's bad enough that so many of the books sold by Scholastic are de-facto promotions for media properties like High School Musical and SpongeBob. But there's no justification for marketing an M&M videogame or lip gloss in elementary schools. Teachers should not be enlisted as sales agents for products that have little or no educational value and compete with books for children's attention and families' limited resources. If Scholastic wants to maintain their unique commercial access to young students, they need to do better.

In the past Scholastic listened to the concerns of parents. When 5,000 wrote to them demanding that they stop promoting the highly sexualized Bratz brand in schools, they discontinued their Bratz line. It's time to consider the danger of Scholastic's marketing and promotion practices in schools and voice your concerns.

Visit the CCFC website to let Scholastic know it's time to return to selling books - and only books - through their in-school book clubs.