Schools everywhere are short of money. Schools take around 20% of kids' time. Kids are a major focus of attention for many marketers. These facts, taken together, make it hardly surprising that marketers have done deals with schools enabling them to market to kids on school premises.

It's not a new idea, but it is increasingly controversial, as the scope and scale of in-school marketing has increased, and the range of available activities and formats has expanded.

The Controversy

It's controversial for a number of reasons:

• Education is seen by both parents and teachers as a commerce-free area.
• Where commerce does intrude, it is suspected of being less than honest (and, especially in the US, of often being aggressive and anti-educational).
• It is, therefore, criticised as a way by which commercial and consumerist values and practices are being insidiously fed to vulnerable children through the schools' back doors.
• Within the broader spectrum of concerns about the appropriateness of advertising to children per se, especially younger children, in-school advertising is seen as being peculiarly outside parents' control (an argument that that gives the teachers little credit).
• And, as a sub-set of the last point, in-school marketing is seen as promoting foods and drinks that are increasingly regarded as nutritionally damaging (for more on this issue, see the WARC Hot Topic on Obesity).

The Benefits

At the same time, marketing in schools can be seen as desirable, possibly for all the parties concerned:

• For teachers, because when done well, it provides extra resources which can save them time and effort.
• More widely, for the schools, because it provides a valuable source of extra funds, at a time when budgets in virtually every country are under increasing pressure.
• For businesses, because it provides them with what appears to be highly cost-efficient and effective access to a target group that many consider of prime importance.
• For kids, because they get access to better resources; and, indirectly or directly, depending on their teachers' use of the material, to a useful stream of learning about how to interpret and use commercial messages.
• For parents, because if properly handled, this can help them in the on-going process of educating their kids for life in a consumer society (and also because of the better resources available to the school).
• For Governments, since the more corporate money they can divert into the school system, the less they need to invest (the UK Government, for example, is increasingly supportive).

The US VS European Experience

The variety and the scale of in-school marketing varies considerably from country to country. It is considerably more intense in the US, and it is here that the most vigorous criticisms against in-school marketing are raised.

Especially criticised in the US are:

1. Channel One, a TV channel owned by Primedia, which provides equipment to schools in exchange for the right to broadcast a daily classroom news programme consisting of 10 minutes of editorial and 2 minutes of ads. Channel One claims to reach 40% of US middle and high schools, but has recently been excluded from a growing number of schools and school districts.
2. The practice of soft drink manufacturers of providing vending machines with exclusive sale clauses, selling only colas, to the exclusion of healthier alternatives. This has led to an on-going series of withdrawals of the facility and in places, court cases, with mixed results.

The EU, by contrast, commissioned a large-scale survey in 1998, from which it has taken the view that, subject to certain safeguards, in-school marketing is an acceptable practice. It is now being more widely adopted, even in countries where legislation forbade it (interestingly, in France, where it was officially illegal, the survey found ample evidence of at least some commercial activity in schools).

Available techniques

The opportunities for marketing through schools are many, ranging from in-school ads to out-of-school voucher programmes (e.g. Tesco supermarkets's long-running Computers for Schools programme). Apart from TV, which is not present in Europe, there is a good list of the advertising options from JazzyMedia.

Beyond advertising, other possibilities include:

• Sponsored educational packs and materials
• Provision of equipment, for classroom, canteens, sports, etc
• Sponsored factory, etc, trips
• Vending machines
• Incentive/reward schemes
• Competitions – i.e. for artwork or projects
• 'Patronage' – in the US, a growing range of schools and/or school facilities are carrying corporate brand names.

Getting it right

None of the advertising self-regulatory bodies has a specific code for in-school marketing, but codes for advertising to children are generally applicable. (Nor are there any national legislative codes. In individual countries, education ministries frequently have their own regulations and directives, even within the increasingly homogeneous EU).

More specifically, a variety of bodies have proposed 'rules' for in-school communication and materials. The best of these lists apply specifically to sponsored educational materials, but can be used, by extension, to guide most other activities. The GMV Conseil report for the EU proposed the following guidelines:

• Distribute materials through teachers, not direct to pupils
• Materials should be either free of charge, or for a token payment
• They should be developed with specialists in the subject and aided by educational experts
• Test materials on pupils
• Materials should dovetail with and assist the school curriculum
• Content should be objectively presented, and without stereotypes or prejudice
• Content should be adapted to local culture
• Branding should not be concealed, but should be discreet
• There should be no slogans or incitement to buy a brand or product.

Further guidelines are available from several sources.

What do teachers think?

The teaching profession is, clearly, key to successful in-school marketing. A scheme has to be sold to the head teacher and to class teachers, where this is appropriate, if it is to succeed – and an issue affecting the whole field is the increasing volume of commercial materials that they are asked to take on, or at least review.

In general, the attitude of teachers appears to be reasonably accepting of in-school marketing, so long as it is done on their terms. However, the annual conferences of British teaching unions usually display a very hostile attitude.

What do parents think?

It appears that it is parent interests, supported by academics in the field of education, that are most active, and hostile, in this field. In the US and Canada (where US practices are seen to be dangerously infectious), there appears to be more activity than in Europe, where the GMV Conseil EU study talks rather disdainfully of the risks of Europe following America in a downward spiral.

In the US, the Consumers' Union (CU, through their Educational Study group, CUES), the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA), the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP) and Consumers International (CI) have all put forward guidelines and codes of practice, with the CU strongly favouring the idea of schools as 'ad-free zones'.

Arguably, more constructive are the efforts of other consumer bodies, and parts of the marketing industry, in developing initiatives to promote media and advertising literacy.

Notes and References

The US vs European experience

Vigorous criticism of marketing in schools comes from a web site based at the University of Arizona's Education Policy Studies Laboratory, under Professor Alex Molnar. Molnar is a prolific campaigner, writer and speaker against the commercialisation of schools. See www.schoolcommercialism.org/ for critical analyses of the state and development of in-school marketing in the US.

The large-scale survey was conducted in 1998 for the EU by GMV Conseil, Paris. A summary is available online.

Available techniques

Jazzy Media, a UK media house specialising in in-school marketing, has produces The ABC's of School Media, which includes survey findings indicating the relative strength of in-school activity. It is available from: JazzyMedia Ltd, 11-114 Great Portland Street, London W1W 6PH, tel 00 44 (0)20 7323 3223.

Getting it right

The GMV Conseil survey for the EU is available as a summary version online.

Further guidelines, in addition to the GMV Conseil survey, are available from a number of different sources.

• Selling through the classroom? Brands should keep an open mind, W Anderson, IJAMC, 2,1, 2000
• Milwaukee principles for corporate involvement in the schools, 1990 (external link)
• Advertising in the schools, A Aidman, ERIC Digest, doc. no ED 389473, 1995

What do teachers think?

Attitudes of teachers have not been extensively investigated, and there seems to be little published research into teachers' views or use of commercial materials, but examples from both France and Belgium show a generally quite positive attitude.

• In-school marketing in France: the teachers' perspective, A Rhodain, IJAMC, 4, 1 2002
• Attitudes of school directors towards in-school marketing: an exploratory study, M Geuens et al, IJAMC, 3,3, 2002

What do parents think?

Several industry initiatives to encourage children's media and commercial awareness have been launched in recent years, such as the Advertising Education Forum and MediaSmart.

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