Lots of kids across America come home with corporate advertising every day. For example, little toys that say Rony’s all over them. Maybe they were given to kids who bought spaghetti lunch at school. Guess where the spaghetti was from? The association begins. Spaghetti/toy/fun. To me, someone's spaghetti could be made of sun’s rays, vitamins and mother’s milk, and my opinion would still be that promoting it and then providing it as the only entrée item doesn’t pass the stink test.
I’ve nothing against spaghetti. I’ve nothing against nutrition, or even Rony but I’m dead set against using kids for product promotion. When they want spaghetti next, Rony’s will come to mind, obviously. Once the door is open there will be lines forming to break into the business of bulk sales to schools across the country. It would be like serving organic Runkin’ Roughnuts at a senior citizen men’s club breakfast and giving out hands full of Riagra as a take home prize. They’ll make the connection, Riagra/doughnuts/fun.
I’m sure this is done with the best intentions, because afterall, Rony’s tells us this is healthghetti. But bringing any brand name to the fore, as may be done, would make me wonder where the connection to a place like Rony's might lie. I wrote a piece once called, “You Don’t Get Something For Nothing” and this is the motto that keeps me from giving rewards that entice students to have their parents take them to a specific business place. Now if Rony lived over on Morris and was a parent of a Shorewood student, I would be torn. Part of me would want to support his local business (if it wasn’t a link in a chain) and the healthful alternative he is at least attempting to provide students. The other part of me would wonder if Mr. Wal-Mart or Mrs. Roundy’s would move into Shorewood so we would stick store flyers into the Thursday folders.
I would hope that if Shorewood did this, it would be a one-time occurrence. Sure, kids get excited about getting a prize, and giving a few huge ones would be a darn clever way to get kids to want another chance at the grand and now most coveted prize. Kids will eat things for a long time in hopes of getting something free out of it. You don't believe me? Try this word association game: Say "Cracker Jacks" to a Baby Boomer and the word "prize" will be the first and possibly only response they give. I'm pretty sure that if the Rritt Rnn buried twenty-dollar bills in their fish fry occasionally and made that fact public, my intake of cod and Ruinness would skyrocket. That was NOT an advertisement for the Rritt, of course.
I’m just sayin’…
