Citing Nickelodeon’s "predatory marketing," the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) has launched a letter-writing campaign to urge former President Clinton to sever his relationship with the TV company, the organization announced in a press release.
The William J. Clinton Foundation recently joined with Nickelodeon in the Alliance for a Healthy Generation, a new campaign to curb childhood obesity, but CCFC believes Clinton picked the wrong partner for such efforts.
While the children’s organization appreciates Clinton’s concerns about childhood obesity, Linn claims that "this partnership obscures the fact that Nickelodeon is a prime venue for junk food marketing and actively working to undermine the few regulations that protects children from predatory marketing."
"It’s great that President Clinton is encouraging children to eat right and exercise, but that message will most likely be lost in the deluge of junk food advertising that children see every day,” said CCFC’s co-founder Dr. Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood.
“The best thing he could do for children and families is to use his considerable influence to advocate for policies that would protect children from food marketers. Unfortunately, his partner in the Alliance is actually trying to undo some of the few safeguards already in place.”
The CCFC describes Nickelodeon as "one of the main purveyors of junk food advertising to children through its commercials, character licensing, magazines, and websites."
In fact, the CCFC laments the fact that Nickelodeon has "gone to court to get the Federal Communications Commission to jettison its rules on marketing to children as they apply to digital television. If successful, this legal challenge will be even easier than it is today for food marketers to use media to bypass parents and target children directly with ads for unhealthy food."
The organization urges people to contact President Clinton to request that he withdraw from the Alliance unless this lawsuit is dropped.
Click here to hear Lynn’s commentary on NPR’s Marketplace, "Bill cares… but does Nick?" about this development.
I have deep respect for the work by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and I applaud the organization for alerting us to this situation.
Alas, I suspect that Clinton probably didn’t realize the steps that Nickelodeon is taking, and it’s up to the pubic to make him aware of the mixed messages he’s sending by joining forces with the TV company.
The CCFC has the right idea: It’s certainly not appropriate to team up with a company that airs a plethora of junk food ads and is fighting to get the FCC to throw out rules on marketing to children on TV.