School Menus in O.C. Ad Up in Market Test
Advertisers have found a new way around the crumbling barriers that separate the nation’s public schoolchildren from the corporate sales pitch: the school lunch menu.
Cash-strapped school districts in Orange County and in test locations around the country are handing out to students this month lunch menus garnished with advertisements and decorated with eye-catching cartoons, raising new concerns about the propriety of direct marketing to children.
“Kids are too brand-oriented [already],” said Jacqueline Kravitz, director of food service for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which declined to take part in the pilot program. “I have to wonder if this is really the right thing to do.”
Also concerned about the practice is the California Teachers Assn., which vehemently opposed the introduction into local schoolrooms of Channel One, the 12-minute daily news program for public schools launched by Whittle Communications in 1989. In return for free video equipment, participating schools required all students to watch the daily programs, which include two minutes of commercials.
“We have the same concerns that we had with Channel One,” said California Teachers Assn. spokeswoman Tommye Hutto. “This is a captive audience. It’s a pity that districts are so strapped for money that they have to do this sort of thing.”
Orange County school districts in Buena Park, Fullerton, Irvine, Orange and San Juan Capistrano have given their students the Toon Tuesday lunch menus, complete with ads and cents-off coupons for Gatorade and Toast’em toaster pastries.
Their students are among 2 million in 81 public school districts nationwide, including 18 in California, that are taking part in a second test of a pilot program. The menus were first distributed last November to 150,000 students in Northern California and six other states.
Orange County school districts, still recovering from an estimated $74 million in losses from the county’s December 1994 bankruptcy, are saving the costs of printing and distributing their own school menus in return for allowing a Los Angeles-based company to sell advertising on them.
Most school districts send their lunchroom menus home with their students monthly, so parents will know what’s being served to their children at school and can plan home meals for balanced nutrition.
The advertising-supported menus are the creation of Your Favorite Producers of Los Angeles and Super Marketing of Irvine, which formed School Marketing Partners last year for the venture.
Regular monthly production of the menus is scheduled to begin in September, with an estimated distribution to 4 million students.
A panel of school district food service directors is being assembled by the company to monitor the selection of advertisements. So far, no candy bar ads.
“We’ve been kind of avoiding that,” said Bill Caldwell, the marketing and food service director for the 35,000-student Capistrano Unified School District who has helped guide the project. “I would hope we continue to avoid that.”
Officials with the five Orange County school districts taking part in the pilot program say they have not made any long-term commitments.
“We’ll be testing it for a few months and make an assessment after that,” said Irvine Unified Supt. Dennis M. Smith. “We haven’t had any complaints yet, and our parents are not bashful. I’m sure they’ll let us know if they object to this.”
In addition to saving school districts from $3,000 to $10,000 a year in printing costs, food service directors are optimistic about the company’s ambitions to do an image make-over for school lunch programs, complete with national television advertising.
During the first test in November, the company placed promotional school lunch ads on Nickelodeon, a cable television channel for children that is viewed nationwide.
“Our goal is to make school lunch socially acceptable,” said Frank Kohler, president of Your Favorite Producers, the marketing and promotion company, which also sells juice and prepared milkshakes to public schools. “Ten percent of our revenues will go into a marketing fund for advertising, to promote the benefits of school lunch.”
Menu selections available to students are determined by the various food service operations of the individual school districts. But the company provides incentives, including collector cards, bookmarks and giveaway food items, both to sell their juice and milk products as well as to entice schoolchildren into eating school cafeteria food.
On the April menu, for example, there are coupons for low-fat yogurt, cheese-and-cracker snacks and $50 off for a three-night stay in a Hilton hotel. Cartoon dog D.J. Spot gives tips on healthy eating such as: “Take time to eat breakfast!” and “Snack smart! Sweets in moderation can fit in a healthy diet!”
On a page entitled “Adventures in Good Eating,” chocolate milk is touted as a healthy alternative to soft drinks.
“We’ve had good reaction so far,” said Terry Pangborn, director of food services for the 11,000-student Fullerton Elementary School District. “It is a pilot program. Once we see how it’s accepted by teachers and parents and students, then we’ll go from there.”
Fullerton school district lawyers reviewed the menu and concluded the advertisements are acceptable, based on prior court decisions, according to Pangborn.
Although the menus may pass legal muster, some educators see them as an attempt to exploit public school students for commercial gain, something they say is becoming increasingly common.
“Schools are always trying to stretch their dollars, but we’ve had a lot of companies offering [instructional materials] that are certainly promoting their products,” said Mary Bergen, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “There are, of course, other forms of advertising at school, but we have to make sure we’re reviewing things very carefully.
“I may be more cynical about Gatorade as a health product than other people. But it seems to me that when we have laws about selling nutritious foods at school, you have to wonder whether we are at cross-purposes here.”
Deteriorating school programs and glum prospects for state funding increases are driving a new willingness to explore public-private partnerships, school advocates say. But they concede there are risks.
PTA groups and other nonprofit organizations were caught off guard last month when one popular fund-raising tool came under fire from state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.
The attorney general filed suit against United Grocer’s Clearinghouse of Costa Mesa, which sells discount coupon books for resale by groups seeking to raise funds.
Lungren’s lawsuit alleged that the business was a “variation on a Ponzi scheme,” because the company relied on income from newly signed distributors--rather than true profits--to pay for the cereal and coffee that it ships from its Costa Mesa warehouse.
The chairwoman of the year-old Orange County Public Schools Fund, a group that sold hundreds of the coupon books, said corporate partnerships have become a necessary component of public school funding.
“You don’t want somebody promoting liquor or cigarettes to the kids, but we have to get these funds one way or another,” Elizabeth Thomas said. “Individual donations only go so far. Only about 25% of the county’s population has kids in public schools, and these parents are tapped out.”
So far, the distribution of the ad-supported lunch menus has caused little concern among parents, according to officials of several of the participating districts.
“This menu really goes home to mom and dad and usually ends up on the refrigerator,” said food service Director Dan Johnson, whose 24,000-student Kent School District in Washington state was part of the first test distribution in November. “We did have a few people raise some concerns about commercializing the school lunch, but overall, the response was very positive.”
Of 450 parents responding to a Kent School District survey, only 10 were critical of the new lunch menus, according to Johnson.
In Florida, the 50,500-student Lee County School District began using the company’s juice and milk items to boost lunchroom sales in May 1994. The district has since begun distributing the Toon Tuesday lunch menus with few complaints, according to food service Director Carolyn Marrow.
“I don’t think you can really shelter kids from advertising at school,” Marrow said. “If you go to a high school ball game, you’re likely to see Pepsi on the scoreboard. When we started using the drinks as a promotion, the kids really liked it because it was more like what they are used to out in the real world of McDonald’s and Taco Bell.”
The key to balancing corporate sponsorship with student protection will be constant vigilance and review, according to veteran Irvine school board member Margie Wakeham. But in a district such as Irvine Unified, which allows high school students to leave for lunch, Wakeham said the school lunch program definitely needs a little help.
“We are being pushed to compete,” Wakeham said. “These menus do have ‘kid appeal.’ But if there is a concern about the advertisements, that’s something we would have to rethink.”
Capistrano food service director Caldwell tells of spending the last 11 years trying to compete with off-campus food chains. Food service employees in his district operate Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Panda Express franchises at “food courts” he has created at Capistrano Unified’s three high schools.
“A number of us in Orange County have been working hard over the years to find a way to help change our institutional image,” Caldwell said. “As we begin to dissolve the boundaries between business and education, there will be some real advantages for everybody without compromising what we do as educators.
“The old cafeteria line with Spam every Tuesday and fish sticks every Friday doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a lot different than when I went to high school.”
