babble » blogs » Strollerderby
Strollerderby
Are ads on buses going too far, or is it child's play compared to what kids see and where they see it?
It’s not a secret that schools are always struggling for funding. Whether it’s federal, state or local cuts, money is perennially scarce in public schools.
Lots of schools do what they need to do to adjust. Bake sales, car washes and tag sales are commonplace activities around the country.
But how’s this for a new way of bridging the school budget gap: advertising on school buses.
School boards are looking for opportunities wherever they can be found, and in Texas, one district is now renting out space on buses in order to get a little extra income.
Too Perfect?
You know the look. Huge, sparkling eyes peering out from a face that appears human in shape, but not surface. Skin that looks more like a swatch of sandwashed silk than a porous organ. Impossibly flawless. The point, of course, is to convince people that the product advertised in the corner of the page actually produced this velvety fantasy. The reality, however, is that these images only look that way after extensive manipulation of reality: before, during and after the shutter clicks.
Earlier this year, the American Medical Association came out against photoshopped images in advertising and media, saying they “can contribute to unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image – especially among impressionable children and adolescents.” In the UK, Jo Swinson, the MP who is becoming known as a champion of girl’s rights, has been pushing a more proactive agenda on unrealistic advertising images. And she’s just won her first battle.
Two cosmetic ads, featuring smoothed out versions of Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington, have been banned from publication after the Advertising Standards Association deemed them “unrealistic”.
See the other ad after the jump.
Does your kid "like" jalapeno Cheetos on Facebook?
Children are especially vulnerable to advertising. It’s hard for them to tell the difference between an ad and entertainment or educational content. They don’t have the filters adults have to help manage all the information coming in.
Parents know this, and we try to teach our kids about ads and media, and to protect them from the onslaught of advertising. We have a big challenge in doing so, though. One might even say an enemy. Big corporations know about kids’ openness to ads, too. And they do their best to make it even more confusing for little ones by disguising advertising as games, toys and cartoons.
The latest round of this comes from big corporations, especially food companies selling sugary cereals and snacks.
Should school buses sell ad space?
School buses are an icon in our culture. The traditional bright yellow buses bring up childhood memories as swiftly and surely as the smell of cookies baking.
Everything changes, though, even traditions. The sides of many bright yellow school buses are sporting a new look this year: ads.
Showing off everything from sugary treats to doctors’ offices, buses are becoming the new billboards in many towns. Hungry for cash, towns and cities are turning their school buses into valuable advertising real estate. Schools are also selling ads in lunchrooms, parking lots and on their school websites. A few are putting advertising inside the buses.
That seems like a creative solution to the all-too-real cash flow shortage many schools are facing. But is it good for kids?
![colbertarmpit Your Daughter Has Ugly Armpits. She Just Doesnt Know it Yet. [VIDEO]](http://cdn.babble.com/strollerderby/files/2011/04/colbertarmpit.png "Your Daughter Has Ugly Armpits. She Just Doesnt Know it Yet. [VIDEO]")
Have you noticed how many new things there are to feel bad about these days? Eyelashes, for example. The idea that your eyes might benefit from a fresh coat of paint around the edges was easy enough for me to swallow. I never saw mascara as a judgment about the quality of my lashes. For me, it was more about whether I wanted to look “done” or not. It wasn’t until the media campaign for Latisse that I looked at my eyelashes and realized how pathetically sparse they were. And here I was thinking my eyes weren’t one of my “problem areas”. Ha.
Well, girls, there’s a new flaw in town.
It’s in a place you might not have worried much about aesthetically before: your armpit. Continue reading »
In this DVR and download-enabled age, we don’t see as many TV commercials as we used to. So when my kids watch something on actual network television, the ads always catch my attention. First, because they’re LOUD and it’s impossible not to stop what you’re doing and come over to see what’s making that horrible noise. (Weren’t they supposed to be doing something about that?) Also because of the incredibly specific way they market to my kids.
The visual parts of TV ads are so striking, it’s easy to ignore the language. But a new analysis may have you listening more carefully from now on. The image at left is a mash-up of the most common words used in advertisements for boys’ toys.
See the girls’ version after the jump.
Juke looks like a lady?
Car ads can get a little dry — all that loading soccer equipment or pulling up to five star hotels or climbing over muddy streams or weaving in and out of traffic cones. No wonder the ad company handling Nissan’s new Juke resorted to a beautiful woman in a bikini. What they came up with isn’t exactly dry, but it’s awfully throw-back, and I don’t mean that in a retro-hipster way. It’s the kind of ad your own mother probably hoped wouldn’t be around for you when your daughters are grown.
It’s sexist in the simplest way: woman = object.
I love what Babble personal blogger Jane Roper has to say about it. Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
The Walt Disney Company supports Babble as a platform dedicated to honest, engaged, informed, intelligent and open conversation about parenting. However, the opinions expressed on this site are those of individual parents/writers and do not reflect the views of Disney. In addition, content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or safety advice.
3