Product Placements Comming in Books from HarperCollins for Children
I read this piece in the Fleming Island Messenger, commenting about HarperCollins Children’s Books disturbing plans to add product placements into a new series of books they are planning to publish. The article, “Keep Disguised Ads Out of Children’s Books”, by Jennifer Wedekind, refers to a press release from a month ago.
Wedikind writes:
Although touted by the publisher for teaching kids about protecting the environment and promoting global understanding, the Mackenzie Blue series actually aims to be a vehicle for delivering commercial messages, through product-placement hidden advertisements, product tie-ins, and affiliated multi-media corporate sponsorships. The author of the series, Tina Wells, is chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which specializes in marketing to children and adolescents.
I don’t specifically see this in the press release, though much is made of Mackenzie Blue author Tina Wells’ experience and success in marketing directly to kids. In addition, the press release states the deal includes
…dynamic corporate partnerships with an international recording company and a Fortune 500 marketing firm…
which leads one to believe that might be pushing some products for a fee. Will these be Mackenzie Blue t-shirts, videos, and CDs or will they be launching pads for unrelated products that are being marketed to our kids through the pages of the book we bought them. If its the latter, I’d discourage my kids or the local library (whoops! that’s censorship if I suggest it, but “selectivity” if they decide not to buy it all on their own-ah, words! so much fun!)
This seems perfectly designed for Amazon-style recommendations. As you peruse the detail pages for Mackenzie Blue books, you’ll see “Others who purchased this book bought these additional products…”, all of which carry higher profit margins than the books will. Amazon might boost these in your search results. As you can see from the link above, “I Love Mackenzie” t-shirts are already available on Amazon.
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