Box Vox

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May 12, 2011

Stealing Box Tops

Box-tops(Photo via: Trash Society)

Back in the heyday of “box tops” promotions, kids were encouraged by cereal companies to pressure their moms into regularly purchasing a particular brand — not because a cereal was necessarily their favorite, but in order to collect enough redeemable box-top-coupons to exchange for some wonderful prize.

I have no doubt that there were desperate and unscrupulous children in those days who occasionally resorted to theft of box tops in order to get those prizes.

Today, “box tops” promotions offer a very different incentive for collecting, but a recent TV News item reveals that theft of box tops is still very much a possibility.

As one of the many institutions currently threatened with drastic budget cuts, public schools are being forced to rely more and more on “the private sector” to try and make up the shortfall.

General Mills characterizes their program as a way to help “fill gaps in school budgets.” Although, it’s also clearly part of the whole “cause marketing” trend, in which your consumer purchase is meant to serve as proxy for a good deed. (The good deed in this case: a contribution to your local school budget.)

But is this type of alternative school funding an example of pragmatic American ingenuity? Or is it evidence of how we unwittingly capitulate in the broader effort to privatize public education?

Are we robbing Peter (school budgets) to pay Paul (General Mills)?

PRO:

Box Toppers are a community of passionate people, joined together to help create change in our schools. Join us, and you’ll get exclusive benefits that include ways to stay connected with other parents on topics that matter to you as well as tools and promotions to recruit others to the cause.

BoxTop4Education.com

CON:

Incentive programs like General Mills’ Box Tops for Education, Pizza Hut’s Book It!, and Campbell’s Soups’ Labels for Education encourage school fund raisers to influence family purchases of specific brands or to frequent certain businesses. In-school fundraisers using items like magazines or candy turn kids into salespeople. Company sponsors gain an unpaid sales force and can inflate prices since the enterprise appears charitable. Increasingly, schools are engaging in the absurd practice of encouraging purchases from certain websites like schoolpop.com, robbing their community businesses and their own sales tax base—a key part of school funding in many districts!

ReclaimDemocracy.org

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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