Complete with coupons, free "Smiley cookies," key chains and other goodies, field trips like Eat'n Park's are just some of the many ways companies are targeting young consumers in the classroom. Exclusive contracts with soda companies or the sale of school facility naming rights might garner more attention, but there are at least a half-dozen other ways marketers find their way into schools.

Mattel offers free Barbie dolls to the girl who writes the best essay about her art teacher. Pizza Hut offers free pizza coupons to students who read enough books. Campbell's Soup has given more than $100 million in educational equipment to schools in the past 30 years in exchange for their product labels.

"The overall stream of ads into the schools is increasing inexorably," said Alex Molnar, director of the Arizona State University's Education Policy Studies Laboratory and the Commercialism in Education Research Unit.

"You have all the old channels -- the so-called supplemental education materials, advertising-laden web browsers, book covers, posters for schools, school bus advertising, you have marketing tie-ins, students given products and coupons to take home to parents, fund-raising drives... it runs the gamut."

Eat'n Park is in the second year of its field trip program, coordinated through the Field Trip Factory, a Chicago outfit that works out school field trips with 17 different retailers.

Eat'n Park spokeswoman Deb Malley said they've had 263 field trips to their stores this year alone.

"It's not hard-core marketing -- it feels good," she said. "We're educating, but at the same time we're leaving a brand impression."

At the North Hills School District, which last month approved a policy setting guidelines to sell naming rights for school facilities, Domino's Pizza Day is a weekly event in all grade levels. Other schools districts offer similar programs with Papa John's, Pizza Hut and other fast-food restaurants.

North Hills food service director George Zappas said the pizza day is one of the only times he uses a brand name on the menu -- and it works. Domino's day is one of the busiest in the district.

"Name brands sell, and my job is to sell food," he said.

Ira Mayer, publisher of the New York City-based Youth Markets Alert, said he views in-school marketing as an opportunity for cash-strapped schools to take control of their financial picture.

"If anything, I see it as an opportunity for schools to sort of take an upper hand and use the fact that these items are being given to schools in exchange for advertising as an opportunity to educate kids about how marketing works," Mayer said.

"Our society is commercialism and capitalism. It's going to happen, so let's at least educate the kids as to what it means."

Giant Eagle has offered both fund-raising programs for schools through its "Apples for the Students" program and an in-store "Be a Smart Shopper" field trip program.

Spokeswoman Tina Thomson said she doesn't see the efforts as overtly commercial, rather as an effort to improve the relationship in their stores' neighborhoods.

"What better way to do it than to help educate kids?" she said.

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Some ways that companies advertise in schools:

Sponsorship of programs and activities: This includes everything from fund-raising events to scholarship programs.

Exclusive agreements: This gives corporate marketers exclusive rights to sell a product or service in a school and to exclude products of competitors.

Incentive programs: They are a reward in the form of a commercial product or service in return for students who achieve an academic goal, such as perfect attendance or increased reading.

Appropriation of space: Refers to the use of school property to promote individual corporations through mechanisms such as naming rights or general advertising.

Sponsored educational materials: These are curriculum materials produced largely by an outside corporate entity for use in public schools.

Electronic marketing: This includes in-school marketing programs using broadcast, Internet or related media.

Fund-raising: This covers direct product sales that return some percentage of revenues to the school or to its parent-teacher organization. It also includes a variety of rewards programs, in which consumers are encouraged to buy certain products or make purchases from certain retailers in order to obtain donations for a school.

Source: Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University

Maggi Newhouse can be reached at mnewhouse@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7997.