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Target Practice: The Corporate Takeover Of Children

How far should corporations go when it comes to marketing to kids? Is shutting down a library and then stocking it with propaganda far enough?
Target Practice: The Corporate Takeover Of Children
Image from: Common License

"Won't someone please think of the children?"



One need only think of Joe Camel or the Sugar Pops Toad to remember that big business has a shameless history of using not-so-subtle methods to turn today's kids into tomorrow's customers.


This is all done in partnership with the Heart of America Foundation, which is dedicated to finding ways for Corporate America to "volunteer" in their communities.

So far, so good, right? We're all for corporations being altruistic and giving back. If they won't give their workers a living wage, they might as well do something with all that cash.



Even more outrageously, it turns out that Target’s library overhaul happened not during the summer months, when the school was closed, but after the semester started – to coincide with the late-fall opening of a nearby Target store. So, the school's library was essentially stolen for a corporate promotion.

After a struggle, Cloues's school library was spared the fate of other Target-targeted school libraries. Those victims got their walls plastered with Target's corporate bulls-eye logo as well as another special corporate gift for the kiddies: shelves lined with books bearing titles like, "The Story of Wal-Mart," "The Story of Starbucks" and "The Story of McDonald's." All lined up in the non-fiction section as part of a corporate-themed Built for Success series for children.

This got our brains a-whirling. Since Corporate America will keep being shamelessly shameless in marketing to impressionable kids, they probably aren't going to give up on stocking school libraries. Certainly they'll expand the Built for Success series. What titles do YOU think they’ll come up with next?

Can you help us out?


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C&L Team