Center on Media and Child Health

2 Hours of TV, 7 Minutes of Reading

A report released by the National Endowment for the Arts this month confirmed what many already suspected:  Children are reading less.  Over the past 15 years, the amount of time children spend reading has fallen 13% and their reading ability has declined — only one third of high school seniors are capable of reading the daily paper.

While youth report watching TV for almost 2 hours a day, they only spend an average of 7 minutes reading.  The report also found that multitasking appears to be a factor when it comes to youth reading. Researchers found that most middle and high school students usually use other media when they are reading. 20% of the time they spend reading is also spent watching TV, playing video games, sending messages, or using the computer.

Two consequences stem from the above:

• 1 out of 5 American workers currently does not read at the level necessary to perform their job.
• People who are more literate are also more likely to volunteer, follow the news, and participate in sports or church, so fewer literate people may mean fewer people doing these activities as well. 

Seems like the best way to get kids involved in the world around them may just be to show them how to get their heads stuck in a book. Who'd have thought?

You Can't Skip *These* Ads

You thought you were saved from marketing schemes because you skip commercials with TiVo, hop from one radio station to another, or opt for books instead?  Think again. When technological change allows users to avoid one kind of ad, marketers change the shape of advertising so you can no longer avoid it.  Here are some examples:

• Radio:  Since the introduction of satellite radio, consumers have many more choices of stations to listen to, meaning that when a song ends and advertising begins, they just flip channels.  In order to prevent people from changing stations, advertisers invented the "adlet" -- a 5 second commercial that runs between songs.
• Television:  With the advent of TiVo and other DVR services, consumers are likely to fast-forward through TV ads.  Advertisers have tried a number of ways to make sure that consumers see their products such as inserting very short ads right before the show, staging ads that look like the show itself, creating very long ads that look like regular commercials when viewed in fast-forward, and embedding coupons in commercials so that user rewinds to catch the promotion.
• Books:  Advertisers have even slipped ads into books. Last year, Cathy’s Book came complete with product placement from Proctor & Gamble. The authors assert that the manuscript was written before the deal was struck, but some groups fear that it is just another ploy to get teens to buy CoverGirl and Tampax products.

It seems that the more consumers try to avoid commercials, the more creative the advertising industry gets!

Dieting Articles Lead to Unhealthy Weight Control

In a 5-year study of over 2,500 teens, van den Berg et al found that reading magazine articles about diet and weight loss lead to unhealthy weight control behaviors among girls.  Compared to girls who did not read these articles, frequent readers were twice as likely to skip meals, fast, and smoke cigarettes, and three times as likely to vomit or use laxatives in an attempt to control their weight. 

In an Associated Press article about the study, CMCH Researcher Alison Field commented: "The articles may be offering advice such as cutting out trans fats and soda, and those are good ideas for everybody...But the underlying messages these articles send are 'You should be concerned about your weight and you should be doing something.'"

See more research on magazines and body image from the CMCH Database of Research.

Product Placement in Games, Music and Books

Some people estimate that product placement started in the 1930s with movie directors filming in their favorite restaurants; others estimate it all really began with the promotion of Reese's Pieces in the beloved film, ET.  In either case, we've seen it done in movies and television for years now and with more and more people using TiVo and other DVR technology to skip commercials, it was only a matter of time before video games, music and books became popular outlets for advertising.  Here are some notes on each category:

Video Games

• CMCH Researcher David Bickham's earliest video game product placement memory was of a British Knights (shoes) "billboard" in the background of basketball game Arch Rival from 1990.
• These days, not only are the graphics more advanced (thus able to translate logos and branding better), but Electronic Arts, a leading video game publisher, has just announced a new in-game ad technology.  Now, ads can be updated by advertisers through the Internet, allowing them to rotate messages within ad campaigns or between different products.

Music

• More and more there are products mentioned in Top 40 Songs.  The Black Eyed Peas' lyrics are full of product mentions; fashion companies Fendi, Donna Karan, Dolce & Gabbana, and Seven Jeans are all mentioned in the first verse of My Humps; and Grey Goose (vodka) appears in Fergie's latest song, London Bridge. 
• In 2002, Pass the Courvoisier by Busta Rhymes even had the product right there in the title!  This mention instantly boosted Courvoisier sales in the US and in Europe while bringing a drink previously associated with an older, wealthy and white generation of men into a younger urban culture.

Books

• The latest example of product placement is Cathy's Book, where Procter & Gamble made a deal with authors to include various Cover Girl products in the book in exchange for promotion on its teen girl website.
• Product placement in books is occuring not only on the pages between the covers, but in fact, on the covers themselves and even in the titles! Recent titles in the "chick-lit" genre: The Devil Wears Prada, The Bulgari Connection, and The Bergdorf Blondes.

In writing this post, I came across the website Brandchannel.com, where one feature is to review the product placements in a top-grossing movie each week. 

You can find research on product placement in the CMCH Database of Research.