Kellogg and Cartoon go long on prizing for back-to-school event

Kellogg and Cartoon Network have hooked up to run a two-tiered promo for back-to-school that will be splashed on more than 100 million packages of Kellogg’s cereals and snack products from June until the end of December. In the arena of instant-win gratification, five DVD-ROMs featuring original Cartoon episodes, bloopers, games, wallpaper and music videos based on Scooby-Doo, The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter, Johnny Bravo and Codename: Kids Next Door will be distributed free in boxes of Kellog’s cereal and Pop Tarts. Then kids can enter a sweepstakes for a grand-prize package that includes a Mazda MPV customized to resemble the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine, a one-week California vacation for four from Alaska Airlines, Dell computers and DJ digital music players and Xbox systems and games. Cartoon will support the ‘Kellogg’s Toon Tour of Mysteries’ with a 30-second spot, a national FSI drop in June, a mini-site on www.cartoonnetwork.com and in-store POS materials.

Privacy advocates seek to hamper list-dependent kids marketing

Two lawmakers in the U.S. have floated a bill to the Senate that would prohibit corporations from using data obtained about children under the age of 16 for marketing purposes without parental permission. Senators Ron Wyden and Ted Stevens introduced the Children’s Listbroker Privacy Act (also known as S21.60) in March to limit the sale or lease of targeted lists that include info like children’s names, addresses, age, ethnicity, religion and hobbies. Federal laws that already restrict the collection and disclosure of children’s data include the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act for under-13s and No Child Left Behind’s Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (which prohibits the release of school records), but the Senators argue these laws don’t cover commercial list brokers. Senator Wyden says this privacy bill will prevent corporate marketers from selling goods to kids via mail, phone and e-mail. It’s still up in the air when the bill will be voted on.