Commercials Take Root In School Freebies

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September 13, 1999 (6:25 AM EDT)

By Malcolm Maclachlan,

Educators are learning there's no such thing as a free lunch.

No-cost computers and Internet access are available for schools, but they come with a price -- namely large-scale advertising that is piped into classrooms over school networks.

Powerful forces are pushing schools and corporate America toward each other. Schools are under pressure to provide students with expensive tools to keep up in our technology-based society. Corporate America, meanwhile, is trying to make captive audiences out of school-age kids.

"You cannot find these kids in large quantities on Saturday mornings anymore," said Idit Harel, founder and CEO of the children's website MaMaMedia.

The first major entry into the school advertising space was Channel One. It offers schools audio and video equipment. In exchange, students must watch 12 minutes of Channel One content, including two minutes of corporate advertising.

A more recent entry into the field is ZapMe, which launched its service in October. The service offers free computers and Internet connections to schools.

In exchange, students must use the ZapMe interface, including a modified version of Microsoft Internet Explorer that feeds a stream of ads into areas on the sides of the screen.

Current advertisers include corporate sponsors such as Compaq and Microsoft. However, ZapMe CEO Frank Vigil said recently that his company would soon start hosting ads from major consumer companies for fast food, soft drinks, and athletic shoes.

There are ways for companies to be involved in schools and get great advertising, said JoAnne Miller, director of external relations at New Technology High School, a technology-centered school in California's Napa Valley. The idea, she said, is to target adults with ads touting a company's involvement in education. For instance, Lotus gives software to New Technology High School and can advertise that fact.

"The company gets great publicity, but the kids aren't looking at ads," Miller said.

But even under this system, she said, schools must be on the lookout. Miller said one software company sought to advertise that New Technology High School had won an award from it. The prize was a six-month free trial of its software.

This was just a trick to try to get the software into the school and then start charging for it, she said. The school turned the company down, she said, and had to threaten legal action to get the company to stop using the school's name in ads.

There is no denying that the private sector is providing the richest technology and innovation, said Parry Aftab, director of the online children's protection group and a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

But just because many schools depend on donations from the private sector, Aftab said, it doesn't mean they can't be savvy consumers. Schools should turn down any offer that involves direct advertising to kids, she said, and instead demand products and services that find their profits more responsibly.

"Perhaps they don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but they need to," Aftab said. "What we have learned over the past few years is the industry responds to customer pressure."

She added, "If we say we want companies to develop content for us that do X, Y, and Z, but do not do 1, 2, and 3, someone will be there."