Pox populi--nonprofit group busted for bogus anti-advertising outcry

Via GigaOm:

Kids’ plush toy social network Webkinz.com has started running advertising, a move that, if recent articles in New York Times and Silicon Alley Insider are to be believed, has greatly upset parents. In fact, whatever controversy exists seems to have been manufactured by a nonprofit group with an idealistic agenda. . . .

So who is creating the controversy if not parents of Webkinz toy owners? The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, whose mission seems like a well-meaning but impractical idea. The CCFC itself points out that Webkinz is, from the ground up, a commercially-oriented site, a fact that Webkinz purchasers surely understand.

This seems like a huge mismatch: a nonprofit activist organization that wants all commercials removed from childrens’ lives joined with a set of parents who choose commercially-based online playtime. Parents willing to buy their kids the Webkinz plush pets that allow them entry into the Webkinz.com site are likely practical enough to accept some limited amount of advertising along the lines of what Ganz is doing.

The real story here is parents and companies relating directly to each other and figuring out what’s agreeable to both sides.

It's an old strategy: an interest group projecting its values onto a more sympathetic community.