Famecrawler
Kate Plus 8 -Just One Big Infomercial? Kids Forced To Shill Discovery Cove and Crooked Houses
There was a day when reality TV was merely a voyeuristic look inside real people’s real lives; The Loud Family, Wife Swap, and the early days of Jon and Kate Plus Eight. But marketers, promotion departments and advertisers have become savvier; they’ve figured out that reality TV is a perfect platform for promoting goods, services and vacation spots.
Most reality stars are completely complacent and conscience of their role – usually passively – as pitchman. But kids? They don’t know any better. They don’t know they’re being used to sell a product or place. The Gosselin eight? They’ve been slyly corralled into shilling such things as their playhouses and their vacations. And successfully I might add.
Last year, while Kate and Jon’s marriage was winding down in front of the cameras, the focus on the episode wasn’t just on their impending divorce but rather an episode revolving around Crooked Houses. Four of these whimsical playhouses- that usually cost $7,0000 each – were placed on the family’s property for the kids. Twenty-eight thousand dollars worth of playhouses, not too bad for a day’s work. And it seemed to have worked. “Within 60 seconds of Kate saying the phrase ‘crooked houses’ on TV last night there were 170,000 visitors to our Web site,” said Glen Halliday, one of the owners Crooked Houses said after the show aired. This episode marked the end of Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and Kate Plus Eight started up with a similar gist – the selling of Discovery Cove.
On the premiere episode of Kate and the kid’s new show, the family goes to Discovery Cove in Orlanda, Florida for the sextuplets sixth birthday. The family hung out with exotic birds, fish and dolphins. And at the airport they were greeted by a gaggle of penguins. But don’t let your kids get their hopes up. That was a greeting reserved for reality stars. Yup, they get perks. And so did Discovery Cove. After the airing of the episode they became the number one most searched phrase on Google.
But are these just dressed up infomercials or are they just vehicles for storytelling, plot points and drama? And the kids have no choice in their participating in the promotion, do you think that’s fair?
Christopher Rogers 
Shana Aborn 
Joanna Mazewski 
Sunny Chanel 
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