Nov 11 2010
Some Parents Disturbed by Scholastic’s Promotion of Sunny D
Scholastic Books is synonymous with school for kids around the nation. The company hosts mobile book fairs on elementary campuses multiple times a year and is awarded multi-million dollar contracts to provide whole school districts with materials. Scholastic is expected to promote a love of reading. However, in an unlikely pairing that is disturbing parents and advocates, it has been marketing literacy combined with junk food. The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood is calling on Scholastic to end its most recent partnership with SunnyD, a highly artificial imitation orange-juice drink. The campaign, called the “SunnyD Book Spree”, tells school children to collect labels from SunnyD bottles to exchange them for school books. Scholastic donates 20 books for every 20 labels it receives from a classroom. The SunnyD website has a form letter parents can print out and send to their child’s teacher. The letter begins by saying the parent is very excited about a new program to bring more books to the classroom and ends with the high pressure sales point, “For the sake of all our kids, I hope you’ll consider taking advantage of this free program.” However the program is not free. The drink must first be purchased, and unwitting parents have been told by their children to buy it in order to help their school. In the past Scholastic books has engaged in joint marketing with M&M’s and Dairy Queen video games.
GUEST: Susan Linn, Executive Director of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood
Find out more at www.commercialfreechildhood.org.
One Response to “Some Parents Disturbed by Scholastic’s Promotion of Sunny D”
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