National Geographic Kids: Insidious Advertising
By: Keith
When I was in 1st grade I used to spend my recesses racing other kids around the school building. As far as I can remember I always won – except when I raced my sister; she beat me more often than I beat her at that age. I remember one time in particular that I was accused of cheating because I had on a pair of Zips with the Velcro laces. To prove I wasn’t a cheater I removed my shoes and won again. Even at that age, and in the early 80′s, kids were swayed by the power of advertising. It was clearly the equipment that mattered, not the skill of the individual. It’s not much different today except that these days advertising has gotten much less obvious. I don’t like it.
This afternoon I was laying in bed reading a National Geographic to my boys when I unwittingly read them an advertisement. It looked just like a real article. It even had some interesting information that wasn’t really “advertisey”. It was all about Cheetahs, and the title was 3 Days to Find your Inner Cheetah! Day 1, do some running. Day 2, do some jumping. Day 3, do some climbing. But nefariously lurking, under each piece of training to-be-like-a-cheetah advice snippet, there was a black box with advice on how to take the training to the “Next Level”. The Next Level of the running bit is to buy New Balance Fierce Trax Shoes because they are “light and cushioned so that you can go your fastest.” Predictably there was similar tripe written under the other two bits of advice as well. I’m still upset about the deception. I’m glad it was me who was reading the magazine. I would not have wanted to deal with my boy coming to me to say he needed Fierce Trax shoes so he could run like a cheetah. Yeah, you’re going to run 70 miles per hour because of your footwear (unless you’re Wile E Coyote on rocket shoes).
What’s interesting is that there were no other similar advertisements in the magazine. In fact, other than an obvious partnership with Disney where National Geographic pretends to do a research piece about The Truth Behind the New Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, there were no other advertisements of any kind in the rest of the magazine. It’s clear that National Geographic Kids has a limit to their peddling stupid crap to kids. Disney and New Balance are the evil doers for this month’s issue. Last month, December, it was Airbus (a contest of some kind so they get a pass), Nintendo and Disney with a must have Christmas wish list and The Truth Behind the New Movie, The Princess and the Frog (does anybody think Disney isn’t a virus?).
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that type of advertizing does seem awfully sneeky and underhanded. Disney IS a virus.. I couldn’t agree more! it’s like a nice little fluffy fabulous virus and then, WAIT!!, it’s EVERYWHERE selling an freeky alternate universe to us and I can’t take it one more second!!! i get the appeal, but I don’t need the bedsheets, shoes, clothes, snack food, tatoos for gosh darn sake, and etc etc etc..!.. ENOUGH!! the movies.. themselves.. ok. but there is NO escaping the buisness angle and that’s upsetting.