CSPI’s latest campaign: Topps marketing
I am interested to see that the Center for Science in the Public Interest has taken on Topps marketing as a new campaign, and for good reason. Topps, famous for chewing gum and baseball trading cards, makes a bunch of candies aimed at kids, one of them in the shape of infant feeding bottles. Disney is now using a kids’ music group – the Jonas Brothers - to promote the baby bottle candy. Not a good idea.
In 2007, Michael Eisner, the former head of Disney bought Topps from the family firm that had owned it for decades. Long before the sale, I once had lunch with Arthur Shorin, the former owner of Topps. I was impressed by his responsible attitude about marketing candy to children. He was facing a difficult problem. Without doing irresponsible marketing, he couldn’t sell enough candy to stay in business. Hence the sale to Eisner. At the time, Mr. Shorin said “This will be a change in ownership, not a change in direction.” Well, that’s business for you.
Update February 20: thanks to Dan for the correction. Fixed.
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This is particularly interesting, as Nick Jonas is very “out” about his Type 1 (autoimmune) diabetes. While current management techniques make it much less dangerous than it used to be for people with diabetes to eat junk food, everything I see in both social networks and professional publications indicate that the most effective ways of managing chronic diseases all include strict attention to a healthy, as-close-to-the-earth-as-is-practical, diet.
Then the candy design — the theme of returning schoolchildren to the dependency of infancy — is also disturbing, as it advocates the mind-numbing thoughtlessness associated with uncritically accepting whatever (expletives deleted) Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government throw at us… at face value.
Correction: Topps isn’t owned by Disney, but by a consortium headed by Eisner, who no longer works for Disney. Disney, in fact, has since Eisner left implemented policies banning this sort of thing.