TheOtherView
Dr. Seuss’s Ad in the Hat disturbs moviegoers

What do Burger King, Smucker’s, Rayovac, Febreze and MasterCard all have in common?

They’re “Cat sponsors.” Each of them is one of 12 different companies promoting more than 40 brands that are working hard to try and make a few big bucks off of Universal's newest holiday blockbuster “The Cat in the Hat.”

To partner up with the movie, some companies pay anywhere from $5,000 to over $1 million. Some extreme examples being Procter & Gamble Co., which has spent an estimated $25 to $30 million on advertising, as well as MasterCard International Inc., shelling out 20 percent of its entire advertising budget for the year on promotion in the Dr. Seuss arena.

Mitch Litvak, president of the L.A. Office, a marketing firm that specializes in partnerships between companies and movies, said that while there are no precise numbers on which movie has the most corporate tie-ins, “it’s definitely up there when you’re talking about the number of different brands involved. I would gamble it’s the top.”

You may be thinking, so what? Movies have been exploited like this for a long time, what makes this one so different?

And therein lies the problem. When did it become OK for us to just let these things go by the wayside? Up until a few years ago children’s movies had virtually no corporate tie-ins.

The new mindset seems to be that everyone’s making a few bucks here and therefore everyone is happy — corporations, stores, parents, kids.

While it may appear that the kids are coming first, they seem to be settling somewhere toward the end of the line.

Who is really benefiting from a Febreze or Swiffer promotion? We don’t really think too many kids are all hopped up to buy the latest scented air freshener or Wet Jet.

“The Cat in the Hat” tries to redeem itself by stating that there are no product placements in the movie because the film is “after all, a fantasy.”

Well, we’re sure Dr. Seuss would be proud. That’s what he did best, trying to create a fantasy world just like this film claims to do.

Only Dr. Seuss didn’t need fancy, expensive promotions to get his vision across. All he needed was his imagination — and that’s all children need too.

This is a staff editorial from the OSU Daily Barometer at Oregon State University. This column was distributed by U-Wire.