Advertising to kids is a touchy subject, so companies usually tread lightly when targeting youth lest they irk parents. Most are more than willing to do a little non-profit “good Samaritan” work to prove their good intentions. Such sensitivities led to 16 food and beverage companies, including Kraft and Coca-Cola, joining Advertising Standards Canada’s Canadian Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative in 2007, which limits advertising messages to kids under 12 years old. Applause all around.
But when Future Shop recently announced it wanted to donate $100,000 in state-of-the-art computers to two Toronto high schools, the offer came with rather boldly branded strings attached. Schools would not be eligible unless they were within seven kilometres of a Future Shop location and willing to paint the new computer labs grey and red—Future Shop’s brand colours.
Despite the caveats, it was announced April 15 that schools have been invited to apply for the donation with the Toronto District School Board’s blessing. How did Future Shop plant its branding so close to kids with school board approval? The answer may lie in Queen Elizabeth Secondary School in Surrey, B.C.
“I opened this school in the early ’90s,” says principal Bruce Filsinger. “Back then it was really hard to get corporate sponsorship. Because of the guidelines of advertising in schools, it didn’t go anywhere… Times have changed.”
Filsinger describes his school as “inner city” and says it has struggled to keep its computers up to date. Budget shortfalls have made him consider corporate donations before, but only as board policies on the subject have softened has it become a viable option. When Future Shop approached the Surrey school board last year, Filsinger already had his proposal written. Queen Elizabeth received the first of Future Shop’s donated labs last year, and Filsinger gladly mounted a bronze plaque on its grey and red walls that said Future Leaders CAD Room.
“I think this was a great opportunity between a school and a business where the school benefitted 100%,” Filsinger says. “Other than the press release, you’ve got to wonder how [Future Shop] benefitted.” Critics argue the benefit to the retailer is in the colour branding on the wall, which could lead to the erosion of anti-advertising guidelines. Trustee Bruce Davis told CBC, “This time it’ll be the colours, the next time it’ll be a swoosh, the next time it’ll be arches.”
“It’s important for us to give back,” says Cheryl Grant, Future Shop’s manager of community relations. She says the seven kilometre and corporate colour requests are meant to demonstrate the company’s commitment to employees’ communities. “We have a very young staff with our [sales] associates. It’s important that they know they’re giving back to the schools they graduated from, or where their children are going.”
The Toronto board faces a deficit of approximately $30 million this year and computer budgets have been cut 21%. The board wants the schools chosen for the computer donation to be in low-income neighbourhoods.
TDSB has policies that filter out certain kinds of corporate presence in schools. For example, no tobacco or alcohol companies can directly market to students. But in February it revised its stance on recognizing corporate donors with signage and now allows signs on non-classroom facilities that are “in good taste.” Since Future Shop didn’t asking for anything as garish as a logo on the door, it passed approvals.
The TDSB “will never impose advertising or marketing on any school community,” says Catherine Parsonage, TDSB’s senior manager of business development. She says the board’s policies are a broad filter for who may approach schools, but each school has the authority to welcome or ban corporate donors.
