South Carolina will begin selling ad space inside their public school buses—11-inch strips above the windows are now for sale, and “Interested school districts get about $2,100 per month per bus.”
The South Carolina Board of Education approved the plan last month, and appears to be moving forward with it.
“I never thought [advertising inside school buses] was a good idea to start with,” said Donald Tudor, South Carolina’s DOE School Transportation Director, “but when you run a state program and districts request this be set in motion, you do it so they can make a choice. Ultimately, I couldn’t think of a good reason why they shouldn’t have the option.”For its part, SAC promises the ads will be age-appropriate, promote a healthy and productive life, and are directly approved by district appointed personnel. Ads sold thus far are from local businesses.
(Thanks to Carlton!)
“School Buses Latest Victim of Ad Creep” [BrandWeek]
(Photo: Getty)
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As a resident of SC, I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t seen any local media coverage about this yet.
Yeah – “funding” and “education” are two words that are rarely used together in this state. (But not because we can’t spell them.)
@shadow735: Actually, THAT (condom and birth control ads) would definitely be worthwhile. And maybe ads for day care services.
@Antediluvian: Agreed. This photo is fake and needs to be labeled as so. Not everyone is going to read the comments to find out that the image isn’t real. Likewise, not everyone is going to realize it’s a joke.
I guess I’m flattered anyone thought it was real. It looks very fake to me. But I guess I have much better image-doctoring skills than I realized.
@Lo-Pan: or try sao paulo, brazil. hardly a “war zone”. -> clicky clicky.
@arcticJKL: you make great points on #1 & #2 & then break out the soundboard for #3. i challenge that it’s not the teachers & instead the management of these schools that’s ineffective. school officials used to be educators. now they are business managers. in my neck of the woods, superintendents are making $250,000/year (4 year contract) when teachers are starting at $35,000. 2 nearby districts are contemplating consolidation into regional schools DESPITE $100,000+ feasibility studies that suggest against it. no problem, just commission another study until we get one that says this is a good idea. the feds are reducing their funding, the state is reducing their funding, & the mandates increase. everyone MUST be educated, no matter the cost (just don’t ask us to pay). the fed now dictates curriculum with a scantron form. do we even have teachers anymore or are they simply “test facilitators”?
& then we discover the root of the problem.
read jonathan kozol’s “savage inequalities”. we all need to work to save education in this country if we are to have any hope in the future.
@Beerad: Well, we already have a Walt Disney Magnet School here in Chicago pluggin’ for Teh Mouse – [www.disney.cps.k12.il.us]
@arcticJKL said, “No ads should appear where the government …:
Excellent point!
@Chris Walters: Chris, the very first comment seemed to believe the photo. At least, the first comment was directly in response to the pic, as did many of the rest. I thought it was real, since it wasn’t so over the top — like advertising phone sex lines or Hooters “restaurants” or credit cards.
So yes, good ‘shopping skills, but please use them for good, not evil?
As we all know on this site, an organization’s credibility is easily lost and hard to regain.
why is there an ad for Six Flags Great America in a South Carolina Bus?
Another take on this…
Who’s getting screwed here ? I would posit that the dumb ass companies that buy these ads are wasting their money.I haven’t been on a school bus since the 70′s , but my kids tell me that everyone that is old enough is plugged in to their Ipod ,talking, fighting or just skimming the latest issue of Hustler… These companies can’t compete with that with their lame single dimensional ads. We had the same reaction when Channel One invaded our schools and the number of kids that pay attention to that turd wouldn’t fill out a baseball team.Kids (and their parents) are pitched to from the time they get up until they go nighty night every damn day. These ads are wallpaper to them. To be sure, the school districts are shameless whores for doing this,but is anybody really paying attention ? Just my two cents…
Wilikers this reminds me of a book called feed. And that book was absolutely horrifying.
Ooohhhh the ads on the bus bring in some cash, in some cash, in some cash- oh the ads on the bus bring in some cash…
And I thinkthe Prilosec ad is for the bus driver.
The kids will annihilate these things. They destroy anything that looks tempting when there isn’t a respected authority around. If they ruin the bus seats, they’ll graffiti the ads inside two weeks.
@Antediluvian: South Carolina is an abstinence-only sex-education state. So you definitely wouldn’t be seeing any condom or family planning ads.
Want schools to get more money?
Where do schools get their money?
From state and local governments which get their money from …. Property Taxes and Sales and Use Taxes.
Remember those little facts the next time you buy something the ‘net and conveniently forget to pay the use tax owed on the purchase.
Seems like a fair source of revenue for school systems. Kids are inundated with ads anyway. TV, internet, radio, etc. But is this attractive ad space? Anything associated with school is a turn-off to many kids. I don’t think they’ll suddenly see something as cool if it is on an ad in a grimy school bus
@Empire: Wow, that’s sad.
For everyone who’s saying how horrible this is, here’s the alternative: Fund your schools. Support property tax levies that are reasonable and help your schools avoid selling out. Push your state and national elected representatives to do a better job of funding schools. School districts aren’t resorting to this because they want to brainwash your kids with ads. They likely hate it, but are desperate.
@Rachacha: Already doing it: [www.channelone.com] They show this in my kids’ schools, complete with ads.
I work in school finance and it’s UGLY. The asinine crap that legislators cook up is unbelievable.
Ok, lets just hope the kids are too busy listening to their ipods, watching a video on various devices or playing a video game on the bus that they are too busy to notice the ads!
I’m pretty sure that the picture Consumerist used is a photoshop rendition, and the article should have given note of that. If those were the kinds of ads that were present on those busses, I would be offended.
But as someone who uses public transportation on a regular basis, I don’t really see a problem with ads on busses. I live in Portland, Oregon, and we have one of the best public transit systems in the US. All of the vehicles used – the busses, Streetcar, and MAX trains – have ads on the inside and outside of them. Most of the ads that I’ve seen have been for local business, and I really don’t have a problem with it.
The fact is, schools need money. It saddens me to think that they have to do this in order to secure more funding, but I can think of worse things that a school district could do to raise money (e.g. having coke machines in the lunch rooms of Jr. Highs and High School, which my district had). Ads are everywhere, and if they are local business adverts I really don’t see an ethical issue with it. Busses are spendy, and all the other public transit has ads all over it…
@alphafemale: Before seatbelts, they could give the stupid things a tune-up. I’m sure the rising rates of childhood asthma have absolutely *nothing* to do with 5 gallons of diesel soot being poured into the kids’ lungs every day.
I thought they already tried this kind of thing before. At one point about 10 years ago, some company tried giving all the schools a free TV network…the catch being that it had commercials aimed at kids. I think there was also a “bus radio” service that did the same thing..gave the kids free music on the way to school, mixed with advertisements aimed at kids.
Oh, wait, “bus radio” is still with us: [www.busradio.net]
I’ve heard rumors that Clear-Channel is gearing up a new FM station.. “WOMB”….all baby radio for today’s active fetus!
In other news, Bank of America announced the unveiling of the “Playskool Points” Mastercard..the credit card for toddlers that earns them free toys while they spend!
Okay, I’m finished now.
As an SC resident, here’s a few clarifications:
* any money goes to the local school district
* the school district gets to approve the ads
* each district decides individually whether they will run ads or not
so it’s not entirely crazy.
I’ll probably be pissed off when my daughter comes home and wants a thing that she saw on the school bus — but considering how much other advertising she will see in her life, and how easy it is to say, “no, dear, that’s a worthless waste of money and I’m not buying it”, I will manage to survive
@Antediluvian & @joemono:
Okay, first, seriously, thanks for your comments. It’s cool to get feedback from readers and I appreciate it.
Now: I’m having trouble understanding your interpretation. The photo is clearly an editorial comment on the practice–hence the dramatically overstated inclusion of kid-specific advertising (junk food, six flags) and random mis-targeted advertising (Prilosec). I even included a visual joke about Wal-Mart buying advertising in the bus—a joke because Wal-Mart is notorious for not buying advertising at the local level, which I believe to be common knowledge among at least a certain subset of readers.
The image is indeed meant to comment negatively on the practice of placing ads in buses. I personally am against it, and I think Consumerist philosophically is against this sort of practice. I think it should be self-evident that targeting children with advertisements when they’re a captive audience, as part of a government-mandated situation, is unsavory, at the very least. I deliberately created an image that communicates that opinion.
If you read my posts regularly, however, you’ll note I frequently make such editorial comments with photographs, which is why I’m surprised you’d consider this one unethical or damaging to the blog’s credibility. Editorially doctored photographs are one of the things that makes this a blog instead of a newsmag, and sets us apart from stuffy, by-the-books MSM.
Finally, I am against labeling photoshopped pics as such for a couple of grouchy reasons:
1. I think it insults the intelligence and humor of our readers;
2. I think it’s caving in to a litigious, too-easily-offended society that demands warnings and confessions on everything.
What I did do, after thinking about your comments and reading the multiple misinterpretations, was change the headline so that it’s clear SC’s ad program is in the future, making it more evident that the photo can’t be real. And I added a caption to the photo to make it clearer it’s fantasy. Hopefully this resolves the problem for all of us.
Thanks!
Chris, the reason I think this particular picture is misleading and bad for the blog is because it DOESN’T look over the top. It looks real. The ad choices are actually ones that could be installed — even the Prilosec (either intentionally or through a mis-buy by the ad agency). Six Flags, Walmart, Coke — these guys already aim their ads at kids (less so Walmart, but not by much), and Coke certainly does lots of local buys, and often in or near schools (scoreboards, banners, backstops, etc).
You’re absolutely, completely spot-on that doctored pics are useful for expressing the opinions of this blog and its authors — hell, it’s “your” blog, I’m just a guest and no one is forcing me to read anything (yet) — and that the pics CAN and sometimes SHOULD indicate the slant of the item (pro or con, good or bad, etc).
But this one went too far because it was too real-looking. It wasn’t over the top — it was exactly what someone might expect to see. People complained about the specific ads included in the “program” based on the pic — in the very first post, and even in one right after yours where you discuss the ‘shopping (that could have happened due to timing of posting, but it still shows that people “fell for” the pic even after the discussion made it clear it was a mock-up).
I don’t think you should stop making pics that express your opinion. I just don’t remember any previous pics that were so lifelike attached to a contentious topic.
It also feels bad to a reader (well, to me anyway) to have formed an opinion of something based on the associated pic only to learn later that the pic was unrelated to the topic, so the opinion needs to be re-thought. It’s like negative campaign advertising. Not because I can’t change my mind, or rethink something, but because it feels like I was lied to. Again, by the realism.
If you’d done the same image without the blurring of the right side and the perspective angle tweaking (I think that’s the name of the tool — perspective angle tweaker), so it looked like someone used MS Paint instead, it would likely have been an obvious mock up. But there would still be the question of whether the mock up was from the bus ad company or from the Consumerist. You folks often post pics that are screen caps of news stories.
I think it could have been solved also by slapping some text / a caption on the pic that said “Coming soon?” or something. If the ads had been nicely ‘shopped all over every surface of the bus — seats, roof, floor — that would have been okay too, since no one would believe they’d put ads everywhere.
Oh, another option that might have been great would have been ads that said in bold letters “Consume” “Buy” “Spend”. Maybe add in, “We have always been at war with Eastasia” for effect. Victoria’s Secret, Hooters, Trojan, “Vote Ron Paul” [he wants to dismantle the federal Dept of Education] etc could have helped make it clear it was fake.
I do understand, and appreciate, the idea of making it look as real as possible to convey the idea that such advertising is a bad concept. But even The Sun and other tabloids include some sort of disclaimer if the pic is made to look real.
See, I think it all comes down to the idea that of the pics with the articles are from the linked stories or some sort of funny flickr pool pics, or something totally off the wall, or clearly real or not real — the metal debris in a prescription bottle, for an example from today, or the keyboard through the CRT, or the pic of the Capital One sign. The pic of the Spring letter, with the highlighting of “concerned department” is real, right? Looks real, and matches the text of the blurb to the right. So I assume it’s real. Same deal with the bus ads. Looks real, right? I assume it’s real, it matches the text of the blurb to the right (“11 inch strips above windows”).
I think you can’t mix real-looking pics that are fake and real-looking pics that are real together without making people question them more often.
To your “grouchy reasons” for not wanting to label ‘shopped pics, I mostly agree — if the shop job is obvious. Please, do keep putting pointed or leading pics with the articles — that’s a good thing (plus, I like the cat ones too — hi Meg). But just be careful when you use your photoshopping skills.
I also think this discussion is good, too.
I think this is about it; it’s hard to edit in a text box only 11 lines high — I haven’t installed whatever Firefox extension it is that lets me make it larger; didn’t honestly think I’d need it.
Thanks Chris.
and here’s a little follow up to make sure the other one made it.
ever heard of the south carolina education lottery? wheres that money go?
@fergthecat:
They showed channelone in my high school too, and we were FORCED to sit and watch it and this was 10 years ago for me. We couldn’t even do our homework (or sleep) during the homeroom period, we had to sit and watch that garbage for 15 min each morning. I went to a catholic high school. I think the deal was that if they showed channelone, that channelone would install TV’s in each classroom thus the school got free TV’s. It was also supposed to be “educational” because they discussed current events.