Tiger's Sponsors Have Only Themselves to Blame

Key points

1. Fortune 500 marketing departments had the same blinders on that we all had—they simply could not fathom Tiger Woods as a fallible human being.

2. The evidence for that failure is clear: Not one of Tiger’s sponsors had a realistic backup plan—or crisis management plan—to protect their brand investment.

3. As much as we’d like to say we’ve learned our lesson, sponsorship is too easy and too effective to ignore. But if our industry wants to continue using it, we need to get better at mitigating the risks.

You’d think after 50 years of using spokespeople to build brands, we’d have seen this coming.

But of course, we didn’t.

Despite over 10 years of superhuman feats on the golf course, we learn, inevitably, that “Tiger” is a human after all. I’ll dispense with the moral outrage (this time is painful enough for his family). I’ll dispense with the media conspiracy theories (silly, just plain silly). Those might make for good talk show banter, but they are irrelevant to “Tiger: The Business.”

And this is big business. Specifically, a $100–million-dollar-a-year business for Tiger, and billions for the sponsors involved.

So if Tiger is human after all, and we (as a sports-watching public) were caught blissfully unaware, surely the Fortune 500 firms who signed on with Tiger knew what to expect. Obviously, they understood the risks. Undoubtedly, they were prepared for any eventuality. Just look at the number of Ivy-League MBAs on the marketing staff! No question, we could count on them to guide their brands through this rough patch.

Right?

Wrong.

In a stunning, but not at all surprising, display of ineptitude, each and every one of Tiger’s sponsors clearly was missing a “Plan B.” How do I know? Just look at some of the key sponsors and their statements following Tiger’s “revelations.”

From Accenture on the decision to quickly drop Tiger from its ad campaign:

“After careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising . . . [Accenture] wishes only the best for Tiger Woods and his family.”

The announcement went on to argue that because the Accenture campaign focused on golf specifically (see an example below), and Tiger would be “taking a break” from golf, the campaign no longer made sense.

No longer made sense. Right.

What they meant, of course, is that the image of Tiger no longer aligned with the image of the firm they wanted to project. And I have no problem with that. Every firm needs to make that call. That is smart brand management. But here’s where it isn’t smart. Accenture (and its New York ad agency Y&R) announced they would be making an “immediate transition” to some other campaign. Hmm. I’d use a more apt description of the meetings that week: “immediate scramble” to find something else that works.

No Plan B.

But at least Accenture is thinking quickly, albeit after the (could-have-seen-it-coming) fact.

That’s more than one can say for other sponsors.

Nike is taking the “wait and see” approach. For now, they are taking the “admirable” position of “standing by their man.” One could argue that’s the “sports brand” sort of thing to do—you don’t abandon your teammates. Nike supports Tiger’s decision to take time off. The Nike brand supports athletes. Hmm. Color me skeptical, but my guess is that Nike is waiting to see what affect this has on sales.

No Plan B.

If Accenture was caught blindsided—then it at least moved quickly, and if Nike’s decision could be rationally justified, at least for now, Tiger’s other sponsors are acting simply clueless.

For Electronic Arts (EA Sports): Who’s going to buy a PGA golf video game without Tiger on the cover? Sorry, but he’s the reason they sell golf video games at all to the under–40 set. Good luck with building up another draw of his caliber.

No Plan B.

Proctor and Gamble’s Gillette: “The best a man can get” seems a both sadly funny and pointedly inappropriate featuring Tiger, doesn’t it? They’re sticking with him, for now. That is, until women (who buy most of the razors during family shopping trips) decide they won’t put up with it.

Even at the venerable P&G: No Plan B.

Tag Heuer: Still sponsoring Tiger until just a few days ago, the Swiss watchmaker’s continuing support was the least strategic of all. Why? All we need to is look at buyer behavior: Many watches in this price range are gifts for men. From their wives. An image of Tiger is not something I would want my wife thinking about if she were considering a Tag Heuer. (Not that my wife would ever buy me a $5,000 watch, but I digress). They struggled, obviously, with the decision. Tiger has been a gravy train. It’s no so easy to let that go.

It’s even harder when you have no Plan B.

If sponsorship advertising is so risky, why do presumably bright ad execs go ahead with it anyway? Simple: It’s easy. A sponsorship is a mental shortcut for customer. To briefly explain: Customer has a positive vision in his mind about the Celebrity. That positive vision matches the attributes of the Brand. If said Celebrity endorses said Brand, the Customer immediately makes the connection between the two. In other words, instead of building that connection in the Customer’s mind over time, a sponsorship can propel the image of the brand forward much faster.

And faster is what counts. Brands have life cycles, and markets have windows.

Let me be clear: A sponsorship strategy is not lazy advertising in and of itself. What is lazy (and delusional) is thinking the gravy train will never derail.

In other words, you must have a Plan B, even when you are using presumably “safe” sponsors like Tiger Woods. (I won’t even attempt to count the number of celebrity sponsors who trod this path before).

For the billions of dollars in brand equity on the line, not one of Tiger’s sponsors had a reasonable contingency plan. This is basic risk management. They should have known better.

Hopefully brands and their ad agencies will have learned their lesson this time. But I doubt it.

Related links

Google Images Search Result: “Tiger Woods Advertisements”

Anything But Neutrality in Switzerland

Key points

1. Many parts of Europe still struggles with the integration of Muslim immigrant populations; this recent Swiss ad campaign speaks to popular fears.

2. The symbolism is unmistakable: Minarets rise like missiles from a Swiss flag with an ominous burka-clad woman in the foreground. Powerful stuff.

3. Shock advertising worked in this case (the Swiss referendum in question was approved with 58 percent of the vote), but there is no mistaking what it really does—exploiting fear, racism, and xenophobia for political gain.

Wow.

You just don’t see ads like this one in the United States.

As far as advertising “cultures” go, we’re pretty “word-based.” We like rational arguments, snappy headlines, and clearly articulated points. That’s not to say advertising agencies in the United States are not careful visual communicators—they are—but even a cursory review of international advertising exhibitions would show a stark difference.

The ad below is case in point. Translated it reads, “Stop. [Vote] Yes to the minaret ban.” A bit of background: Minarets are to the mosque what steeples are to the church, an architectural feature common in classic designs, but (just like modern Christian churches) not a requirement. Switzerland is home to about 400,000 Muslims, or about 4 percent of the overall population. Of the 200 mosques in the country, only four have minarets.

As you might have guessed, this is no ordinary campaign for a new zoning ordinance.

Minarets are not a building code issue. They are a symbol. And a powerful one at that.

The ad is the product of Switzerland’s ultra-right wing. Political winds indicate a growing concern over the “Islamization” of Europe. The issue has become something of a flashpoint in Western Europe, with sectarian riots, civil unrest, and the 7/7 terror attacks in London. It also helps to understand that the famous “Swiss Neutrality” is solely a foreign policy position. Inside the country, political parties jockey for position the same as any other vigorous democracy.

From a political perspective, the campaign is unlikely to achieve anything explicitly substantive (minarets are not a “problem” in that sense). In addition, the referendum (that did pass, by the way) will likely be ruled unconstitutional. Singling out a religion for special treatment is as off-limits there as it is here. Rather, the referendum was a litmus test for politicians to test message their fear appeal.

But before we drift too far into a political discussion—others have done that far better than I—let’s refocus on the advertising itself.

Whether you like or dislike the ad or its aims, one cannot dispute the symbolic power employed. Let’s briefly tease apart the key elements.

First is the Swiss flag itself. We see that it is in the background, almost “trampled upon.” Be that as it may, the flag represents an obvious and powerful symbol of national pride and identity, seen as “under siege” from foreign invaders.

Next, emerging from the flag we see “minarets” themselves. But they don’t look like minarets, do they? They look unmistakably like missiles poised for an attack. To the diplomatically neutral Swiss, anything that smacks of military threat is anathema to its culture.

Finally, we see a burka-clad woman in an ominous pose (those eyes!) staring at the viewer. There is double-symbolism here. For one, it represents a starkly counterculture image of women in Europe—covered, shackled, and oppressed. It also represents the fear of bringing the burka into the school, community, and workplace. But more than that, the threat of a female suicide bomber and religious extremism is unmistakable.

Scary stuff.

Of course, as you might also guess, this is not the first shockvertisement to spawn from this group. In another striking visual, a group of “black” crows picks apart the Swiss flag (“A free passport for everybody? No.”). Another ad juxtaposes a burka-clad woman and another blonde Swiss woman under the headline, “Maria, not Sharia” (as in Islamic Sharia law).

Sure, the ads are banned in many places in Switzerland, but that hardly matters. In fact, that response creates the opposite affect, increasing their popularity. The ads spread virally through traditional and social media channels. For a very limited budget, the ad receives near-complete market penetration.

To be frank, I considered that as I wrote this article. Am I, by showing the ad to you, inadvertently feeding their strategy? Am I perpetuating this message, with whatever small audience I might reach?

I am not sure what the correct answer is. Sometimes, I think it is correct to ignore the proverbial screaming child having a tantrum in the supermarket. To recognize the behavior is to validate it. But there is another part of me that says sunlight is the best disinfectant to hateful creative garbage—no matter how symbolically effective it might be. It must be exposed for what it is—racist, fear mongering, and exploitative.

Switzerland may aim for neutrality. In this case, I cannot.

Related links

Swiss Minaret Vote and Vague Fears About Islam

Better Bathroom Habits: Courtesy of Charmin

Key points

1. Toilet training young children is hard enough, but perfecting those habits (to include efficient toilet paper usage) is even harder.

2. Up until the “Charmin Bears,” advertising in this category simply skirted the issue, obviously too afraid to tackle real problems head on.

3. The bears are charming but spooky effective. They use a classic problem, demonstration, solution, call to action formula to drive the point home.

We used to be on a first-name basis with our plumber.

Over the last few years, our two boys have improved their “toilet paper usage ratio” (sheets used per incident) dramatically. But the early days of toilet training were brutal. We could easily go through a quarter roll per qualifying toilet visit. The money spent in toilet tissue notwithstanding, the real problem was a series of calls to the plumper to snake out stubborn clogs—usually after a minor brownish flood.

Truly, a painful lesson all around.

Clearly, we had a problem. If an advertiser were smart and wanted us to buy its brand of toilet tissue, that advertiser would have helped us by creatively educating kids like mine. Heck, they’re already watching the shows and have little problem pitching sugary cereals. We could have used some help.

But think of toilet paper advertising over the last 20 years. Helpful? Hardly. Think of the iconic “Mr. Whipple” character. Don’t squeeze the Charmin? Please. How often did that happen? Personally, I’ve never thought toilet paper so appealing as to nuzzle it. Cute, maybe, but it didn’t really address the feeling of financial dread I would have as I approached the toilet paper aisle at Target each week.

Too late for us, but perhaps not too late for you, Procter & Gamble began hitting us with the Charmin Bears.

My wife thinks they’re a bit creepy. Cute. But creepy. As a student of the advertising game, I think they’re brilliant. All we need do is slice apart a couple pieces of advertising to see why. We’ll look at two storyboards. The first, “Charmin Pit Stop,” pitches the Ultra Soft product variant. Its benefit is clear: The paper is so absorbent, you can use less of it. The second, “Charmin Super Cub,” addresses the second irritatingly embarrassing problem of toilet paper “cling-ons” —those little pieces of sub-standard toilet paper left behind during vigorous wiping. Its focus is the Ultra Strong variant.

Storyboard 1: “Charmin Pit Stop”

Introduction of the character: The ad opens with the familiar family of “Charmin Bears” on a road trip. Notice that they are “blue” bears to match the “blue” packaging for this variant.

The problem: The young bear is using too much toilet paper, and the “mom” is rolling it back onto the spool as a lesson to the child. This sets up the educational message.

Product reveal: A “family member” bear is holding the product in this case, very clearly showing us the package (that we may have missed in the previous scene).

Switch to product differentiator: Here is the close-up of the product itself, with a pattern (flowers) that implies “softness.”

Comparative demonstration. A direct hit at the cheapie competitive brand, this demo clearly illustrates how you will use less toiler paper per “incident” and therefore save money. Nice.

Problem resolved. After a successful potty break, all the bears are piling back in the car to continue their fun.

Call to action. In case you missed the benefit, the ad ends with a “get more mileage” (see, the “car” metaphor . . .) with Charmin. It should go without saying now that you’ll be prepared as a shopper if the “other brand” costs a bit less. You’ll know why you are spending those few extra pennies.

Storyboard 2: “Charmin Super Cub”

Introduction of the character: The ad opens with the familiar outdoor scene and “Charmin Bear.” Notice that it is a “red” bear to match the “red” packaging for this variant.

The bear we see in the beginning is the “child,” and “mom” notices toilet paper stuck to the child’s bottom. Herein lies the problem: Weak tissue shreds and leaves little pieces after wiping.

The product revealed (for the first time), lest we forget. It will come back later to remind us before we finish watching.

Switch to product differentiator. This is the “set up” that Charmin can solve the problem—some sort of unique toilet paper technology! Oooh! Diamond!

Comparative demonstration. Here is the “proof.” We can see the actual product side by side with its competition. A classic technique. And wait! They are smart enough to hint at, but not name, their competitor.

Problem solved! Child’s butt is clean and mom is happy. See that she is also rubbing the paper against her skin to make sure we don’t think the product is too rough on the skin.

Call to action. In the final scene, the “super cub” shows us the product again and what to do when we get to the store.

Like or don’t like the ads creatively, it’s hard to argue with the formula. It goes without saying P&G is good at this consumer product-marketing thing for a reason, but what’s really impressive about this series of ads is the set of issues they tackle. Overuse of toilet tissue, toilet paper stuck to your rear end—not easy stuff to talk about! In the United States at least, we don’t like to talk about our private rituals.

The Charmin Bears solve that problem with cute animation, but they don’t skirt the issue. Problem. Differentiator. Proof. Solution. Call to Action. It’s a formula 1950s advertising guru Rosser Reeves would be proud of.

Ooh! Here’s what’s even better: As viewers get used to the formula, they’ll know what to expect. With that kind of multiplier effect, P&G can afford to run fewer ads for the same impact.

And by the way, we buy the “blue bag” when we shop these days. We’ve been taught. At least for us, the Charmin Bears hit home. I wish they had come just five years earlier.

Related links

Watch Charmin “Pit Stop”
Watch Charmin “SuperCub”
Who the heck is Rosser Reeves? Learn about the master.

At Least No One Died This Year…

Key points:

1. For retailers, this year could go either way—positive or negative about 1 percent—possibly a strong predictor for 2010.

2. Last year’s trampling death at a New York Wal-Mart and similar (but less deadly) incidents all over the country pointed to a danger of a phase-shift in acceptable crowd behavior. In other words: It would be okay to act like an angry mob. Very bad for business.

3. Retailer took specific steps this year to stop that from happening—police patrols, extended store hours, and hot item vouchers to name a few. It seems to have worked.

My wife was on “sleeper’s row” on Black Friday.

I wouldn’t know, of course. There’s no way you’d catch me waiting in line Friday morning outside the Shoreview SuperTarget store at 3:45 a.m. That’s over an hour of standing in the cold in the hopes of finding a few blockbuster deals.

(I’d say what those deals were, but suffice it to say, my kids are just old enough—and I dare say conniving enough—to search my column for clues.)

When she arrived home later that morning, she said the scene was orderly, but busy. Probably a bit busier than last year. And there was a new addition: the police. A squad car made the rounds several times, eying the shoppers lined up outside to ensure no “funny business” erupted.

More on that in a moment.

To set the stage, retailers have been eagerly awaiting the day after Thanksgiving as a barometer of things to come. Yes, many retailers started “pre-Thanksgiving Day” sales—and some (Sports Authority and K-mart) even stayed open on the holiday itself—but there is nothing like Black Friday to gauge customer sentiment.

The handy chart below visualizes the nervousness.

Holiday sales were off 3.4 percent in 2008 as the United States lurched headlong in psychological recession (we had been in real economic recession for a while by that point). Projections this year look better, but not great. The graph shows change in holiday sales compared to the previous year. A quick glance at the chart tells you even in the best-case scenario, a 1 percent growth, sales would not reach 2006 levels. If the pessimistic projection is accurate, a 1 percent decline, we’re basically looking at 2005 numbers. Not good.

Just for fun, I graphed real GDP on the same scale (shown in red). When you compare the two, you understand the much deeper concern. First, sales growth or decline is largely psychological. If we were purely “rational consumers,” holiday spending would track GDP growth pretty closely; on the whole, we’d spend in relation to how much growth or decline we saw in the broad economy. Perhaps with a bit of a lag, but still traceable. But we clearly are not rational. Retail sales growth and real GDP growth were in line only three of the last 10 years. In 2008, we overreacted. But in most cases, we overspend. No surprise there, but retailers know they can’t get the American consumer to overspend real GDP growth forever.

So if economic reality and a nervous psyche underlie retail success or failure, why the focus on security this year? That would seem a bit tangential to the bigger picture.

But it isn’t.

Security and order are critical.

Last year, a temporary Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death on Black Friday as a mob of customers rushed the doors to grab the latest deals. Others were injured. Reports of unruly customers came in from all over the country. Put simply, if what happened last year happened again this year, we may have the beginnings of a new trend.

And that’s a terrifying thought. Here’s why.

It’s based on theories of crowd behavior. Lots of gummy academic lingo, but here’s the short version: Crowds self-organize around rules of “perceived acceptable behavior.” For instance, in an American sports stadium, it might be “acceptable” to loudly cheer, shout at the referees, and drink a beer or two, but there are lines that are not crossed. No rushing the protective rails. No fights. Limited foul language when children are present. That’s not to say there are not exceptions, but they are certainly not the rule. Compare that to European football games. Different standards of behavior. Different results.

All well and good. Here’s where it gets dicey. Let’s say the “rules” of the game change. Let’s say it becomes “acceptable” to reach a new level of semi-violent mob behavior outside of retail stores on Black Friday. What if people stopped respecting the “place in line”? What if people started banging on the doors? What if shoppers began to whip themselves into a frenzy? Anything could happen. Individual inhibitions break down as people get wrapped up in the moment. Bad stuff is bound to happen.

Other than the obvious, if the rules change in that way, a good percentage of shoppers will stay away from Black Friday openings all together. And if retailers begin the shopping season on a resounding thud (and cleaning up blood in the entryway), the whole retail shopping season might be in jeopardy. Complain all you want about “hyper-consumption,” but if retailers struggle, the economy will take a serious hit.

That makes Target’s decision to call in the fuzz make a bit more sense.

Crowd behavior theorists say that if you can introduce an artificial “stop” in the process (as Target did with the police drive-by’s), you can stop the ugly transition / phase-shift process.

Target, of course, was not the only retailer to take these steps. Wal-Mart got serious. Many of its stores stayed open 24 hours (or opened at midnight). This eliminated the “rush” at store opening and removed the potential for dangerous herd behavior (psychological reference, no offense to frenzied retail shoppers intended). Best Buy handed out vouchers for top products to those waiting in line to prevent mad rushes once people entered the store. And it cracked down hard on in-line scalping before the open.

Smart thinking all around.

Methinks retailers will have enough to worry about without European-style soccer riots every post-Thanksgiving morning.

Related links:

New York Times, November 29, 2008: Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death

World Bank: Global GDP Data by Country

National Retail Federation

Unhealthy Advertising

Key points:

1. As part of a $6.4 million grant, Yale University compared the number of advertisements kids saw for breakfast cereal with how healthy those cereals are. No big surprise: lots of ads for unhealthy cereals.

2. The food industry counters that they are making changes—whole grains, contributions to athletic programs, and vitamin enrichment.

3. In the end, though, cereal maker assurances seem a bit weak. If the industry fails to self-regulate, it may find its ability to promote its brands severely limited by government regulation.

Breakfast at our house is pretty predictable.

Not a day goes by that I do not see the outrageously happy baker on the front of the box of General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch breakfast cereal. We go through so much of it, I secretly fear the day I get a personalized note from Ken Powell recognizing our patronage.

Not to say we haven’t tried to banish the baker. We’ve tried eggs; the kid’s like them, but in the 30 minutes between when my oldest son wakes up to when he is off to middle school, they take precious time. We’ve eliminated fruit juice and switched to water; many juices have more simple carbohydrates than a can of Coca-Cola. We bring in Harelsons from the Pine Tree Apple Orchard in Dellwood; the kids love those.

Let’s just say I put up with sugar-bomb-breakfast-cereal, but I don’t like it. In the end, I figure some sort of breakfast is better than none at all.

Then my youngest son came home with a Time for Kids magazine featuring a Yale study that summarized research on the marketing of breakfast cereal—specifically ultra-sweetened breakfast cereal—aimed at kids 6 to 11 years old.

The study was couched in an article (written for kids in this age bracket) regarding the growing problem of overweight children. The article makes both the explicit and implicit claim that heavy advertising of unhealthy breakfast cereals may be contributing to this problem. The broader Yale study is part of a $6.4 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the link between food and childhood obesity and come up with answers.

Quibble with the methodology all you like, and dispute the link between sugary cereals and obesity if you will, but as a parent, this cute little chart got to me.

If you notice what I notice, you see a couple of important points. First, there isn’t a single “healthy” cereal on this list. Presumably, it is because kids won’t eat them. (More on that later.) Second, there really isn’t a correlation between “number of advertisements viewed” and “cereal healthiness.” In other words, all of the cereals in the top–10 advertised list were considered unhealthy, and the only differentiator seems to be the ad budget in question.

By way of comparison, Yale researchers did publish a list of “healthy” alternatives. Advertising to kids was nearly non-existent.

1. Kashi: Puffs, 7 Whole Grains Puffs

2. Post: Shredded Wheat, Spoon-Size Wheat ’n Bran

3. Barbara Bakery: Shredded Wheat

4. Post: Shredded Wheat, Original

5. Post: Shredded Wheat, Spoon-Size Original

6. Kellogg: Mini-Wheats, Unfrosted/Bite Size

7. General Mills: Fiber One, Original (bran)

8. Nature’s Path: Synergy 8 Whole Grains

9. Uncle Sam: Uncle Sam

10. Kashi: GoLean

I’m not about to say that advertising these brands, versus the first 10, would result in a wholesale change in kids’ breakfast habits. But we’re not even trying. However, before we are tempted to drift into rant mode, the cereal industry clearly sees where this argument is going, and they would take issue with a few points.

First off, many “unhealthy” brands have switched to whole grains—a healthier alternative with an undetectable difference in taste. Neat. Companies also contribute millions of dollars each year to schools and kids’ athletic programs. I’ve cut my fair share of “Boxtops for Education.” Neat. Finally, knowing that kids are likely to eat (a lot) of their cereal, each one is enriched with a healthy mix of vitamins and minerals. Also neat.

Privately, they might say that if I were so darned concerned, I should get my lazy butt out of bed 15 minutes earlier and make a better breakfast. The commercials all say “part of a complete breakfast,” (emphasis mine) don’t they? They show other foods, such as milk, orange juice, and toast on the table with the bowl of cereal, don’t they? I should also be monitoring the commercials my kids watch and turn them off if I disapprove. I shouldn’t let my kids visit the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Web site without me, or install blocking software to prevent unwanted surfing. What’s more, I could do a better job of teaching my kids to eat the healthy stuff I like.

Even more privately, they might bristle at my implied criticism of advertising generally; the market should decide what sells, not some misplaced sense of righteous indignation. We should vote with our pocketbooks. If parents didn’t like it, they wouldn’t buy it, and the market would force a change.

All fair enough. I will gladly accept that criticism.

Now it’s time to take some of mine.

We’re parents. We have a lot on our plate. We’re growing increasingly uncomfortable with the $157 million each year the breakfast cereal industry spends simply to reach kids through television advertising. That doesn’t count other promotional efforts, Web sites, and incentives.

Research shows us again and again that kids don’t understand the difference between advertising and facts. That’s why they’re so easy to influence. We know the industry knows that. The jaded among us might say they are doing it anyway. The free market folks among us might say they have every right to market your product in accordance with the law. But both recognize an alarming trend in our schools: Kids are getting fatter. And less healthy. And that we must take action soon.

As I see it, the industry has a couple of choices.

First, keep going the way it’s going, making improvements but still heavily promoting unhealthy food to easily influenced children. Eventually, parents will get angry enough to lobby the government for stricter rules on advertising food products to children. I detest this approach. Attempting to regulate communication is a horribly blunt instrument and rife with unintended consequences.

Second, self-regulate. Take the steps now to develop new options for kids and assertively advertising those. Tone down the advertising on your unhealthier brands. We wouldn’t expect this to happen overnight; the business needs to earn a profit. But it is the small part a responsible organization would do in the face of a health epidemic in children.

Listen, I am not picking on cereal makers. There are worse things our kids are eating and worse examples of explicit marketing to them. But that doesn’t mean those companies are not part of the problem, and that they couldn’t be part of the solution.

Parents are waiting patiently. And they seem to prefer the second option. But they won’t wait forever.

Related links:

Yale study: “Kids Spoon-Fed Marketing and Advertising for Least Healthy Breakfast Cereals”