The Privacy Dilemma: Balancing Privacy and Online Life

It's been widely said that attention is the currency of the 21st Century. In an age where media occupy an increasingly central role in our lives, the need to have that media focused on you becomes intense. For no-one is this more true than for children and teens, who now expect to be connected twenty-four hours a day and for whom the Internet and cell phones are essential parts of their social lives. An interesting Facebook page, amusing Tweets, outrageous YouTube videos, even shocking photos sent by cell phone -- most of us are aware of the ways that young people seek their peers' attention. In today's media environment, is it still possible to teach young people the value of privacy? What, indeed, does the idea of privacy even mean to today's children and teens?

Marketing & Consumerism, Privacy, Professional Development, Resources

Naughty or Nice: Video Games for Christmas

With Christmas approaching, video games are the one media industry that seems recession-proof, with games topping many wish lists. Parents, though, can find it difficult to tell just what they're buying for their children. They may know about Grand Theft Auto, for instance, but may wonder what kind of sins are in Sins of a Solar Empire. Of course, nobody wants to disappoint their children: if parents decide not to buy Gears of War, will little Johnny be happy with Rock Band instead? Fortunately, there are both tools and techniques at hand to help parents identify games they might find inappropriate and also to pick appropriate games their children will like.

Marketing & Consumerism, Parents, Resources, Video Games

Packaging Tricks

This lesson introduces students to the ways in which packaging is designed to attract kids.

Food Marketing, Marketing & Consumerism

The Price of Happiness

In this lesson students answer a brief questionnaire related to self-image, self-esteem, and advertising, and then work as groups to create and act in mock television commercials that parody advertising techniques.

Body Image, Gender Representation, Marketing & Consumerism

Sports Personalities in Advertising

In this lesson students explore the relationship between athletes and advertising through a number of different activities.

Marketing & Consumerism, Sports

Looks Good Enough to Eat

This lesson looks at food photography and the different techniques used by food stylists to make foods look appealing in advertisements.

Food Marketing, Marketing & Consumerism

Adversmarts: Introduction to Food Advertising Online

In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea of online advertising and look at the ways that marketers create immersive and appealing online environments that draw and hold children’s attention. After studying common advertising techniques, students play an educational online game that lets them put their learning into action by “creating” a site advertising a fictitious cereal, Co-Co Crunch.

Digital Citizenship, Digital Health, Food Marketing, Internet & Mobile, Marketing & Consumerism, Online Marketing

Kids, Alcohol and Advertising

In this lesson, students learn to recognize how the advertising genre is used to build brand loyalty for "parity products"—products like alcohol where there is little difference in taste or performance. Students learn to deconstruct the "Three Ps" of branding: Personality (the product's "vibe"), Position (the target audience), and Promise (the fantasy sold to the consumer). The lesson culminates in an "Ad Satire" assessment where students create a parody ad that "unmasks the brand" by flipping a glamorized media promise into a realistic social or medical consequence.

Alcohol Marketing, Marketing & Consumerism