Kids’ attention is a hot commodity these days. According to numbers from CBS, companies spend almost $17 billion a year to market to kids. Also, 8- to 12-year-olds spend $30 billion of their own money and influence $150 billion of their parents’ spending each year. And companies are finding more and more ways to advertise to kids.
In some states, such as Michigan where district schools are now considering allowing advertising inside school buses, advertising on the outside of school buses is against the law. Not all states have this law though.
Some schools already have advertising on the outside of their school buses, as well as in their schools. But I didn’t find anything about school buses having ads inside the bus.
Cherry Creek schools in Colorado sold ads on the outside of schools buses, featuring advertisers from local TV station to rec centers and the U.S. Army. The ad revenues topped out at $54,000. The school district’s spokeswoman said that no parents have complained about the ads.
The Humble, Texas school district signed a contract with Steep Creek Media to sell school bus ads in the district, hoping to make $1 million per year.
On the other hand, the South Carolina School Board banned school bus ads just this past September.
With school budgets being cut more and more each year, many school districts feel this is what they have to do stay afloat or to afford to keep teachers on board.
On the other hand, advertising is allowed in schools anyway, so why not take it one more step to the buses? The Grand Rapids public school district in Michigan takes advertising for its Highlights newsletter, which is sent to every single house in the city. In Seminole County, Florida, McDonald’s advertised on elementary school report card envelopes that students with good grades, behavior or attendance would get a free Happy Meal. In exchange for the ad space, McDonald’s paid for the printing of the report cards and the report card envelopes, which totaled about $1,600. McDonald’s and the school planned to do this for the entire year, although McDonald’s had made a promise to stop advertising in all elementary schools. It’s funny that this statement was reported on Dec. 6, 2007: “The school district said it will continue to run the ads on the report card envelopes throughout the year. It will take into consideration the one complaint it received from a parent into consideration for next year.” And then the one parent caused enough of a ruckus to make McDonald’s pull its ads on the report card envelopes only one month later. On Jan. 18, 2008, it was announced that McDonald’s would no longer include ads on the report card envelopes and would pay to print new report cards and envelopes that were void of ads.
This is a thin line to skate on – advertising to kids is loathed, but school districts need that money in this economy where their budgets are shrinking. Do you think ads inside schools and school buses are acceptable? I don’t think so. But then again, would I want to pay higher school fees for public education to make up for the loss of ad revenue? Probably not. I think that’s the questions parents need to be asked – do they want to make up the difference in the budget or let the advertisers do it?
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