ET: Cash-strapped edu. institutions started to let brands through their gates in growing no's: Oct 1 | CSR

Back To School

Cash-strapped educational institutions have started to let brands through their gates in growing numbers ..........Gemma Charles

BIRDS Eye’s sponsorship of an educational game to be distributed in schools is illustrative of brands’ increasing presence in UK’s classrooms. Sponsored activities shaped around the curriculum are joining existing voucher collection schemes, such as those run by Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Birds Eye’s Brain Game Challenge, which comprises content developed by the National Schools Partnership (NSP), is intended to support the brand’s Omega 3 Fish Fingers. Designed to be played by the whole family, the game pack, which contains an interactive DVD, a booklet and stickers, features ‘daily brain workouts’ and quizzes. The frozen-food company’s marketing manager, Will Hemmings, says the activity is aimed at building “closer relationships with mums and children”.

NSP’s chief executive Mark Fawcett adds that all the work it undertakes is assessed on whether it will be of benefit to “families, educational providers and the brand or government body”.

One London primary school teacher who has come into contact with sponsored resources welcomes their presence. “Teachers are always looking to make their lives easier. If you can get hold of one of these packs, they can be really helpful,” she says, citing a Sainsbury’s healthy-eating teaching aid, which “featured lots of product pictures but was still good”. Another way brands use ties to schools is to further CSR objectives. An example of this is Kellogg’s investment in school breakfast clubs. This initiative has burgeoned with the government’s ‘extended schools’ drive aimed at increasing the hours that schools open to help parents with childcare. Technological advances also offer an opportunity for brands to target pupils. Blackboards and chalk were replaced by whiteboards and pens. In turn, these have given way to electronic whiteboards, known as ‘smart boards’, which can be linked up to the internet. The Life Channel, the doctors’ waiting-rooms TV network, launched in schools as TLC Schools last year, for example. It now broadcasts content designed to encourage healthier lifestyles.

Having decided against taking advertising from brands, The Life Channel runs only government campaigns. Sonia Tasker, its channel editor for schools, says: “We are quite judicious about who we will allow on the channel.”

Not surprisingly, there are those who are against brands running schools-based activity .Compass, the left-leaning think-tank, estimates that brands spend £300m a year on school-focused activities. Its general secretary, Gavin Hayes, adds that although he is not against companies promoting their products and services in the public realm, the school environment should be sacrosanct. “It’s conditioning children into that mindset, and educating them to become consumers before they are citizens,” he argues.

Hayes hopes that an investigation into the impact of the commercial world on children’s wellbeing called by Ed Balls, the secretary of state for children, in April, will rein in this activity.

Schools offer brands the chance to flex their CSR credentials, as well as promote their offerings in a targeted way that can provide overworked teachers with fresh and fun educational methods. However, with the eyes of the Department for Children, Schools and Families focused on their activity, marketers must be on guard to ensure they exercise firm responsibility.

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