Livewire: Back to School Means Back to Advergames

By Sue Zeidler  |  September 15, 2004

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Back to school for many kids means "back to Internet access" in classes where the best of filtering software is not foolproof, particularly against seemingly harmless Web sites used for invasive marketing.

Internet-ready schools generally provide an "acceptable use policy" to parents and students which outlines Net etiquette and safeguards against accessing inappropriate Web sites.

But little is formally being done to shield kids in school or at home from "immersive advertising" or corporate-sponsored "advergames" such as the Neopets Web site, which contains loads of embedded advertising messages and links to merchandise.

"This is flying under the radar screen of most parents and teachers," said Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest advocacy group that in June urged the Federal Trade Commission to review interactive marketing and branding technologies used to target kids.

The group also called on the ad industry to adopt a moratorium on such techniques until more research was done.

To be sure, most students have little or no time to fall prey to these sites during class time, when computer instruction is curriculum-based and closely monitored.

Yet, various schools said they do allow for some Web surfing in after-school programs or at semester's end. Whether or not immersive advertising or "advergaming" Web sites like the popular Neopets.com virtual pet community, http://neopets.com, with an estimated 23 million registered users, is viewed as a menace is left to the discretion of individual teachers. Neopets officials were not available for comment.

"Certainly, filtering of inappropriate material is a requirement for receiving federal funding, so that's probably a bigger topic than advertisements," said Wayne Shimizu, a program consultant in the education technology office for the California Department of Education in Sacramento.

"I'm sure (advertisements) are on the radar and that school districts approach it differently. But it's not like there is a standard way for blocking it," he said.

According to Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture," the average American child is exposed to 40,000 ad messages each year.

What's more, many big corporations like McDonald's Corp. <MCD.N> and soft-drink companies are forging contracts with schools.

"Schools are just not as concerned to the dangers of advertising and commercialism on the Web as they are about pornography and decency for various reasons," said Katherine Montgomery, a communication professor at American University in Washington.

"So many schools have made deals with corporate sponsors and are already so highly commercialized," she said.

Child advocates say youngsters often cannot tell they are being pitched products because this kind of advertising blurs the lines between marketing and entertainment. Experts fear that little is really known about long-term effects on children's brain development and emotional systems.

Advertisers spend about $15 billion a year targeting kids through sites like Neopets, which has ads embedded into games and links to Web sites operated by McDonald's, General Mills Inc. <GIS.N> and Procter & Gamble Co. <PG.N>

California-based Children Now has also listed food company sites like http://Toomunchfun.com, http://Nabiscoworld.com and http://Postopia.com as troubling advergames as kids increasingly battle the problem of obesity.

The Federal Communications Commission on Sept. 9 approved rules requiring TV stations that air more than one digital channel to show additional children's programing, but fell short of issuing a ban on interactive ads on digital television.

"We're disappointed it didn't actually ban the practice," said Patti Miller, director Children & the Media for children Now, a children's advocacy group in Oakland.

"Given kids' unique vulnerability to commercial persuasion and the unprecedented levels of commercialism that exist today, the commission should permanently ban interactive advertising so children can't answer the door when toy and junk food peddlers come calling," she said.