The Hindu Business Line : To school, they go

In-school promotions have evolved from just dumping products on kids to promotions that are relevant to them. Today, they are educational and entertainment events designed to make children more informed about brands and choices. But criticism still abounds that it leads to `undesirable' pester-power.

CLASSROOMS in India may not have chimneys but marketing Santa Clauses slide into schools with knapsacks loaded with goodies. This is because lack of regulation has made schools across the country vulnerable to companies hunting for new audience shares.

The latest consumer outlook report of leading retail consultancy firm KSA Technopak estimates there are around 32 million children aged between eight and 19 across socio-economic classes A, B and C in India. The report further crunches data across 10,000 households in 20 major cities of the country and draws the inference that marketers cannot afford to exclude targeting kids in their marketing plan. The report reveals that the guilt factor among urban upper- and middle-class `time pressed' parents is leading to increased pester power. It is this persuasion that most marketers target and exploit.

"Kids' minds are vulnerable, impressionable, easy to influence. Exposing them to the temptations such as toys that are not educative, drinks that are nutritionally questionable, fast foods and snack foods that are laden with fat, promotional material that promotes Western teen values or encouraging them to pester their parents for high-end durables and automobiles is indicative of desperate commercialism on the part of some marketers," says V. M. Wabgaonkar, Director (Business and Brand Strategy), Leo Burnett India.

There is no regulation on what you can do as a part of marketing in schools in India, except for the general laws of the land. Most European countries have banned in-school promotions. The most wide-ranging regulations are to be found in Sweden, where TV advertising and sponsorship of programmes aimed at children below the age of 12 are prohibited. In Germany and Denmark the ban is limited to certain forms of toys.

Most marketers either use above-the-line promotion techniques such as releasing advertisements on children-specific television channels or reach out to schools for product demonstrations, to sponsor competitions or sometimes even distribute free samples.

Direct marketing in schools too is more complex than it used to be earlier. Today, it is a derivative of extensive databases segmenting children on many marketing variables other than demographic mapping and one supported by high technology. "In-school promotions have evolved over the years from just dumping products on kids to promotions that are relevant to kids. Today, marketers turn promotions into educational and entertainment events so as to make children more informed about brands and choices," says the head of direct marketing at a well-known Mumbai-based ad agency. And he should know as he has been handling in-school promotions for a decade now.

For instance, Pepsi Foods is one company which targets children using both above-the-line and below-the-line promotions. As a part of in-school promotions, Pepsi India has launched a school contact programme, which has taken 425 schools across 14 cities including Delhi, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Agra, Jaipur, Dehradun, Lucknow, Kanpur, Mumbai and Pune. As part of the programme, six-overs-a-side cricket matches will be played between different teams in each school and the winners will get `attractive prizes.' The latest above-the-line strategy adopted by Pepsi Foods is built around the movie Spiderman-2, which offers Spiderman memorabilia in exchange for Mirinda crowns and PET labels.

Real Fruit Juice from Dabur is targeted at mothers and children between the ages of 6 and 14, besides young executives. According to Amit Burman, CEO, Dabur Foods, children love the taste of Real fruit juices. These school packs are claimed to be nutritious, well-planned snacks, essential to meet the child's daily energy and nutrient needs. The company further claims to educate children about the benefits of eating a healthy diet through animation films.

ITC Foods Ltd is promoting its Sunfeast biscuits across 1,000 schools in the country as part of its Sunfeast school programme. Considering the need to garner visibility among children, the company has earmarked around Rs 20 lakh for this below-the-line project and their target is to reach one million children.

There are around 500 schools in the Western region which are willing to provide space and time for any kind of demonstrations. A point to be noted is that direct marketing activities by corporate companies rarely take place in municipal schools. Most in-school promotions are done in upmarket areas specially targeted at children from middle-class and upper middle-class families, the objective being exploiting pester power.

A well-known pharma company used to sell calcium tablets to well-fed children in upmarket schools. "If at all there is a need to promote calcium tablets, the company should target the deprived or the malnourished children," points out Preeti Shah, a senior functionary at the Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Centre.

Shah says that the CERC brought this to the notice of the Ministry of HRD and the Food and Drug Administration and they immediately asked the drug company to curb its promotions, which it did. The drug company sent an apologetic letter stating that the `over-enthusiastic' salespersons distributed the pills instead of promoting the need for calcium, adds Shah. Shah had attended a seminar on banning in-school promotions in Portugal, and according to her, in-school promotions include hiring clinical psychologists to track the likes and dislikes of children to position products on their findings. The seminar also pointed out how children in Western countries consumed more cola than water, she said, adding that obesity has emerged as one of the major concerns in the West. Just recently, in response to the junk food menace, doctors in London called for a ban on all food advertising aimed at children under 12 years in a bid to tackle the UK's increasing obesity epidemic. As Wabgaonkar of Leo Burnett sums up, "Guidelines to regulate such initiatives exist in other countries and are urgently required in our country too."

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