Targeting the kids’ market; or, Why I drove 45 min. to DQ

As some of you know from our posts, Antonius and I are no fans of mega-corporate-franchised-fast-food garbage. And our son, now 4 1/2, has grown up on good food cooked at home with occasional meals out at the sort of chowish spots all of us here seek out and cherish. We feel proud when, for example, Lucantonius tells people his favorite ice cream spots are Freddie’s for gelato and “the German place” [Laschet’s] for regular ice cream.

But unless one wants to go the survivalist route and hole up in an Idaho cabin with no contact with the outside world, other influences are going to enter into a child’s life. And it’s not just his pre-school classmates, the ones whose culinary ideal is Dunkin Donuts donut holes. More insidious is the corporate sponsorship of apparently admirable initiatives. Here’s one example, from the pre-school: one day out of the week each of the “friends” (new term for children, by the way) was encouraged to bring a book and talk about it. Those who did a book report each of the weeks was rewarded at the end of the two month period with a special treat: a coupon for a free pizza at Pizza Hut! (Why not a coupon for a book instead?) Well, you know, that little piece of paper just got lost in the chaos of our house… out of sight, out of mind.

This week his busy schedule took him to the Aquarium. And there he apparently answered some question right or otherwise did something to earn a special prize. Another little piece of paper. “One free Dilly Bar from DQ.” This one, with a picture of something chocolate-y on a stick, was enticing beyond belief. He held onto it tight; Mommy had no chance to misplace this one.

Okay. I’m not a total ogre about this. I don’t object to him having something from Dairy Queen, even (as a one-time thing) before dinner. But I knew from reading LTHForum that the Dairy Queens in Chicago are few and far between. And his pre-school is on the Near South Side. I pointed out that it was a looong drive to get to a DQ. I offered to buy him something comparable (no, better!), in Pilsen, in the South Loop, in Tri-Taylor. NO NO NO! DQ DQ DQ! Talk about brand loyalty…

So we left Antonius at a local tavern with a big etymological dictionary to keep him happy and headed up to Southport and Grace in rush hour yesterday.

I can say two nice things about the DQ: it has a (small) parking lot and it has a (big) clean bathroom. Lucantonius naturally enjoyed the whole experience, but for me it was a depressing interlude in the day. The insipid taste of the Dilly Bar (chocolate covered vanilla ice cream on a stick), the frightening list of ingredients on the wrapper, the clueless staff, the totally plastic décor (faux 50s and 60s theme: old cars, Elvis pictures, Gilligan’s Island playing on TVs). As an antidote I took us across the street afterward to El Mercado where I got a lovely alfajor (Argentine cookie) for later. And back home Antonius whipped up a quick dinner of macaroni tossed with briefly sautéed zucchini and zucchini flowers from our garden, which greatly helped to get us back into balance.

Lucantonius’s verdict was that DQ was better than the McDonalds ice cream he had on another school outing ( no comment…), which he deemed “stringy”, but not worth the long drive to go back. I’m relieved to hear that, though I know we’ll have some other fast food temptation in our lives soon enough. But it really brings home how much in a minority we chowish people are: the rest of the country thinks it a splendid reward for a child, a free glob of ersatz sweet stuff on a stick. A few of us, though, would rather go across the street where an unlabeled box by the cash register contains lovely, delicate homemade cookies with an unfamiliar name.

Amata wrote:Lucantonio’s verdict was that DQ was better than the McDonalds ice cream he had on another school outing ( no comment…), which he deemed “stringy”, but not worth the long drive to go back. I’m relieved to hear that, though I know we’ll have some other fast food temptation in our lives soon enough.

I suppose the lesson, then, is to always make the trip to a fast food place utterly unbearable

You know, I've been meaning to say something about Toots a VERY classic Chicago fast food emporium on Cental at Montrose, but I've never found the right chance. Well, now I have!

The softserve there is especially good, almost Wisconsin good. It'll wean Lucantonius off of DQ.

Rob

Toots.

Well, it looks classic.

Mike G wrote:Toots.

Well, it looks classic.

I can only speak to the ice cream.

Vital Information wrote:You know, I've been meaning to say something about Toots a VERY classic Chicago fast food emporium on Cental at Montrose, but I've never found the right chance. Well, now I have!

The softserve there is especially good, almost Wisconsin good. It'll wean Lucantonius off of DQ.

Rob

I'm sure it's good and it'll be fun to try it. But Lucantonius's obsession yesterday wasn't driven by any consideration of quality/taste and he'd never been to (or heard of, probably) Dairy Queen before: it was because he had "won" this little piece of paper with an appetizing picture and one specific brand name on it. (I supposed it helped that the short version, DQ, is something even a 4 year old can read.) It's a remarkably effective strategy for creating the desire for a particular brand.

So we left Antonius at a local tavern with a big etymological dictionary to keep him happy and headed up to Southport and Grace in rush hour yesterday.

The sacrifices husband's make for their families. Sort of makes you all warm and fuzzy.

Vital Information wrote:

Mike G wrote:Toots.

Well, it looks classic.

I can only speak to the ice cream.

I can speak to the hot dogs. Get the ice cream.

I gotta say, more than a few 100 degree Kansas afternoons have been made tolerable by a chocolate cherry Blizzard at DQ.

When I was younger and living in Murray, KY, the local Dairy Queen was actually great for ice cream (and still is, apparently). I need my brother to jump into this thread and give the details, but apparently they used a different "mix" for their ice cream, more real ingredients, I guess. It's a seasonal DQ with no indoor seating, you just order at a window and then sit at a picnic table. The thing I always got was a mint chip blizzard with fresh bananas mixed in. Mmmm...delicious.

I actually had DQ not too long ago and realized that Scooter's, Kopp's etc. had spoiled me for its more watery soft-serve ice cream. And it's unfortunate that an actually somewhat old-fashioned chain feels the need to put on the faux retro look, though that isn't the first time I've seen that happen. Americans only seem to like new old stuff, not old old stuff...

Amata,

I think your concerns are somewhat misplaced. Rather, your concerns about marketing maybe futile, in the sense that you cannot really do anything other than what you did about it. Which, btw, I think is to be commended.

Everything, everywhere is about marketing and product placement. Kids are a great target. It is easier sometimes to get them to get you to do what the marketer wants - spend your money. There is no escaping marketing at any waking hour. And then it gets worse: soon (if not already) young Lucantonius will face an even greater threat to rational decision making abilities - peer pressure.

The way I see it, you could have denied him the trip to DQ and next thing you know he's doing what I did in college just to see if Mom was wrong about that too... *

On the other hand you have brought him up in a way that enables him to make the (hopefully right) decision. I think the most important part of your post, you did not emphasize properly: he decided for himself that it was not worth the drive.
(notable since it was you driving)
I do not think you could reasonably ask for more.

So to you, Antonius and especially young Lucantonius, I say:

Chow,
sazerac

*Mods: I know I shouldn't use emoticons excessively, but for this statement I do believe I can justify each and every one.

Ciao/chow, sazerac, and thanks for your nice words. You're right: for now, at least, Lucantonius seems to have gotten his fill of Dilly Bars and we have a little respite until the next marketing onslaught. (He just got invited to a birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese... <groan>)

You may also be right that marketing is inescapable: but I probably won't stop complaining about it!

And thanks also for the evocative string of emoticons!

Amata

Interesting post, Amata. I feel your pain. In my house, I was also fighting the bride who has always had a strange fondness for McDonalds and began the tradition of fast food Mondays early on, over my protests.

Everything, everywhere is about marketing and product placement. Kids are a great target. It is easier sometimes to get them to get you to do what the marketer wants - spend your money. There is no escaping marketing at any waking hour. And then it gets worse: soon (if not already) young Lucantonius will face an even greater threat to rational decision making abilities - peer pressure.

I agree entirely. As a parent of two, now teens, we took the approach, not just with marketing but with most of the negative influences that are out there (gambling, drugs, alcohol, spending money irresponsibly, noxious internet sites, crap TV and radio, noxious and totally addictive video games, etc, etc) that the key is to try to educate your kids to make intelligent and responsible decisions, not isolate them from all these things. So we sampled them together for the most part (no, not drugs or pornography), and I tried to outline what I thought of them in a way that was not too heavy handed, and did not necessarily bleed all the fun from the experience. The kids did tell me to shut up at times, but I like to think I had some success.

The alternative is to have them explode into the world when they become independent late in high school and early in college, and I have seen too many people lose their way entirely in that situation.

Having said that, I completely lost the food battle with one of my kids, tho he tolerates good food when we eat out together. But I think I won most of the more important ones.

These rewards are good marketing, and they do motivate kids to participate in good programs, so I understand the view of the schools. There is beginning to be a little more attention paid to what products are allowed in schools, particularly in cafeterias, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I think the main focus of the moment is beverages, particularly soft drinks, but I think there is also be increasing pressure on Mickey D's et al to offer more and more healthy options in educational settings. Of course, no one will eat the healthy stuff.

IANAP (I am not a parent), but I'd be pretty pissed off if my kid's school was giving out gift certificates for junk food (whether it's DQ or 'the German place") as rewards. I can see how it's hard not to assuage your kid in situations like that, but the school put you in a very bad position. I'd take them to task for it. They'll probably blame some BS about needing the $$ from DQ because of budgets and all that. I mean, why is such an incentive needed anyways ? Back in The Day (75-80 for my grammar school days) the only "incentive" was to get good freaking grades so my parents didn't kick my a** and because, well, the teacher TOLD YOU TO DO IT !

If they refuse to change the practice, call the newspapers and TV stations and see how they feel when Pam Zeckman shoves a mike in their face and screeches "WHY ARE YOU MAKING LITTLE KIDS FAT !?!"

I fully agree with your outrage, but unfortunately this is an extremely common practice, and one would have to be marching in to the principal's office or calling the TV stations on a daily basis to combat it (and let's not forget who advertises on those "news" programs, so I'm not so sure they'll be all too eager to cover this sort of stuff.) I have two kids in the Evanston public schools, and though I believe this is a community and a school system that cares about these things, nonetheless there are few weeks that go by in which, in some way or another, students aren't exposed to less-than-healthy foods offered as rewards in some contest or another. Domino pizza coupons as incentives for kids who read the most books, oversized candy bars for kids who sell the most wrapping paper, and on and on. Then there are the "curriculum units" provided free, of course, by food companies, so kindergarten classes teach counting using M and M's or Cheerios, for instance. (This is not confined to food companies, of course, as Nike and Sony manage to make their corporate presence felt in similar ways.) Even the much-vaunted food pyramid, promoted by the Department of Agriculture in teaching units provided free to schools, is of course hugely influenced by the food industry, and would look different if truely independent nutritionists had designed it (for more on this and this issue generally, see the work of Marion Nestle, especially her book Food Politics: How the Food Indsutry Influences Nutrition and Health.) I've protested some of these things, but you do have to pick your battles, and it gets wearing being such a cranky parent. You are up against well-meaning teachers endeavoring to engage children with things that kids like, and the fact that public schools are so desparately cash-strapped is, without question, a huge part of this equation. So I'd argue that one of the best way to begin countering the influence of corporate culture on our children is to fight for better funding for our public schools.

You all seem to be jumping to an awful lot of conclusions here. What evidence do we have that those Pizza Hut and/or DQ coupons were donated by their respective organization and not obtained by some other means? I know of more than one parent teacher organization-sponsored fundraiser that was launched to raise money for just such a purpose, for example. Rewarding extracurricular but academically relevent school work with a coupon for a fast-food treat (which parents can then choose not to redeem) is a far cry from, say forcibly filling elementary school gullets with frozen confections and crappy cardboard pizza.

The greater issue with the food in our schools is the lack of acceptible meals (both breakfast and lunch). Not only are the cafeterias of our schools being replaced by mass kitchens run by megaconglomerates that are far more concerned with pinching pennies than providing balanced meals (curse you, Sodexho Alliance!), the National School Lunch Program is revised year after year to reduce the already negligibly adequate nutritional requirements of the meals served in that plan.

I understand you dislike Dairy Queen and Pizza Hut (I sympathize), but the real problem isn't that kids are occaisionally offered coupons to these restaurants as rewards, it's that the food available on a daily basis to the vast majority of elementary school students is of the same poor nutritional value as a Triple Chocolate Blizzard or a Stuffed Crust Pizza.

This is the Pizza Hut program. It's been around for at least 15 years. The school doesn't pay anything to join, and Pizza Hut "donates" the "prizes" and all associated materials.

I admit that when I was in fourth grade I cowed my parents into taking me to Pizza Hut to redeem my Book It button for a personal pizza. I feel sorry for them.

OK, I give .. I guess it *is* ok to raise good little future corporate consumers as long as there's reading involved ("No, Johnny, that says monosodium glutimate, now go sit down"). Disney's been doing it for decades so I'm not surprised others have followed suit.

I have this delusional notion that my future kids won't be beholden to the Disneys, McDonalds & Pixars of the world. I'll just go sit in the corner and mutter quietly to myself

No, no, never give in, never never never! While I do think the all-encompassing marketing is one of the more difficult things about being a parent these days -- it's difficult to instill real compassion and morality when things seem so much more important than people -- it's a fight that must be fought. As Amata indicates, some little victories are possible, and I try to use all these school product promotions as "teachable moments" (a ghastly phrase one hears often as a parent.) So we talk (or probably, in their minds, I lecture) about the history of McDonalds and for the creation of the Happy Meal and the reasons why companies are willing to lose money on some items to build consumer loyalty and etc. while my kids are enjoying their Chicken McNuggets. But I do think that some of these problems require larger political solutions -- well-funded schools with well-trained teachers would not need to rely so much on the free materials provided by corporations with agendas that go beyond educating our children.

The point about school lunches is important, too, though, and more attention is being paid to the utterly dismal state of school lunch offerings, both from the standpoint of nutrition and general attractiveness of the food offered. (And of course we now have the show on the Food Network, I think, with Jaime Oliver attempting to do over the really appalling foods fed to kids in England.) But much of this stems from the fact that school lunches are generally for poorer kids (in Evanston, for instance, most of the more affluent kids bring their own lunches) and the government has shown little interest in the diets of the poor. The WIC program, for instance, is supposed to provide low-income women who are pregnant or who have young children with vouchers so that they can purchase healthy foods for themselves and their children. But, since its inception in the 1970s, the program (now, finally, under review) has never provided vouchers for fresh fruits or vegetables. The only "fruits" poor women were encouraged to buy for their children under this program were fruit juices, obviously a less-than healthy choice for kids at a critical time in their development. (Of course, the lack of availability of good produce in poor neighborhoods is another problem as well.) No wonder these kids grow up craving sweet drinks and suspicious of fresh produce.

Hope the ranting in not out of line. But this topic is one I dwell on regularly. I'm glad to read that other folks care about it as well.