Captive audience: Florida jail is latest to sell ad space
Filed under: Company News, Economy, Media
Reaching a captive audience has long been a top priority for advertisers. After all, what better way is there to promote a product than right before a movie, when ticket buyers are settling in for two hours, or on a subway placard facing seat-bound commuters? Yet, a recent plan to sell advertising space on visitation video monitors at a Florida jail has some wondering whether such marketing efforts have gone too far. The Charlotte County, Fla. Sheriff's Office hopes to bring in about $77,000 a year by selling ad space to the likes of attorneys or other companies providing services that might appeal to inmates or their visitors, making it perhaps the first jailhouse advertising program in the U.S., according to WINKnews.com, a web site for the television channel WINK in Southwest Florida. The reason for plan? Lt. Norm Wilson was facing a tighter budget and wanted to come up with ways to fund prisoner programs, the news site says. Wilson didn't return Daily Finance's call seeking comment.
Like the Charlotte County Sheriff's office, cash-strapped public schools are also resorting to similar advertising programs, says Josh Golin, associate director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. Some schools are offering naming rights or advertising space on school buses, he says.
"There is an ethical issue with advertising to anybody -- whether it's a child or an adult -- when there's no way to opt out of it," Golin says. "Our primary defense against advertising is our ability to turn it off, and that's really being lost."
Golin believes marketers are exploiting the fact that entities like schools are facing such tight budget constraints and are desperate for new sources of funding.
Take a company called MilkMedia. The company sells advertisements for toys and action characters on the side of milk cartons to elementary through high school students. According to its Website, the program reaches more than 40 million students each day through 98,000 schools.
And then there are school buses. The Paradise Valley School Bus Advertising Program sells ads on 130 buses in the North Scottsdale and North East Phoenix areas of Arizona, according to its web site. The pitch to advertisers? Buying an ad on one bus creates 52,000 daily impressions while helping to fund local public schools.
While assisting public school systems is a noble goal, they aren't appropriate places for marketers, says CCFC's Golin.
"Schools are supposed to be a place where everything they're exposed to is in their best interest, not for someone else's best interest," he adds. "Freedom from advertising is something that people have a right to."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-11-2009 @ 11:08AM
rollin said...
What was that advertisement? Come Join Our Mosque?
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10-12-2009 @ 6:09AM
ycav4424 said...
Next they will have ads on the prisoners uniforms.
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10-12-2009 @ 7:25AM
mark said...
So where is the our tax money gone to?
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10-12-2009 @ 9:39AM
Rose said...
Mark,
In FL no one has any idea where the Tax money has gone. That state is so screwed right now because their own Govenor think's it's more important to marry to further his political career and run for FL Senate seat in DC. Further more no one should be shocked what that State does to raise funds...I gaurentee if the politicians thought they could get more money they would sell more than just ad space in prisons.
10-12-2009 @ 8:17AM
elitistpuke said...
Do you really think the U.S. Government Criminals give a crap about America, you or your children?,... Guess again, While the Political Spin Doctors were setting Americans against each other through left-Right False Political Paradigm's,, guess what they were doing behind the scenes?,.... No matter what kind of Distraction and Disinformation the Compromised and controlled Media throws in front of you as News Articles,.... NEVER, NEVER take your eyes off of the Criminal Elite Filth in Washington and Public Authority. --- Washington Child Sex Scandal cover up: - Watch Video = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bHD8yeFSoE
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10-12-2009 @ 8:36AM
Emma said...
Nothing wrong with ads on visitation monitors in prisons if they are advertising legal services. NO advertising should be placed in schools, school busses or anywhere that solely targets children in a LEARNING environment. If that happens I will step up my rhetoric with my kids about the whole purpose of advertising is to get you to buy something and is rarely based in reality. It's about money in the marketer's pockets and the pockets of the advertising firm.
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10-12-2009 @ 8:37AM
bill said...
WARNING:
Several weeks ago AOL ran a story about a model Florida prison inmate business that produced and sold hot sauces made from (prison grown) hot peppers. Interesting story. The story then gave a web address if you wished to order some of the unique hot sauces. Thought I'd give it a try. Turns out the web address was a link was to a company called Total Security and was a trojan virus. Nightmarish scam. Had to get infected computer de-bugged by tech and it turns out it is still partially infected. I would stay away from any link or web address having to do with Florida prisons.
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10-12-2009 @ 9:27AM
Steve said...
It was only through the local vendor ads that we could afford to print programs for our school musicals, etc. Now, as a taxpayer, I really appreciate schools, prisons, or any other taxpayer-funded entity proving they have exhausted any and all other revenue-producing streams -- before asking me for more $. I don't understand the difference between an ad on a metro bus and putting one on a school bus. Are you saying kids won't see the ad on the metro bus, or TV, or football stadiums?! I approve of any creative revenue generation. Better a business paying than taxpayers.
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10-12-2009 @ 10:05AM
voodkokk said...
Hello no, they should focus on keeping prisioners locked up. The American People are going to demand a Prison makeover here pretty shortly and all the overtime, prisoners living the life of luxury are about to come to an end.
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10-12-2009 @ 10:44AM
R.Shelton said...
You should go to jail and see first hand the life the men and women have, very little medical, food is not what the system would tell you, no really programs to help them when they get out so they go right to there old ways and right back to jail, and we the taxpayer get the bill and the powers to be get rich, CCA what a joke---- don't talk about something you have walked in the shoe you speak of.
Thanks
10-12-2009 @ 10:10AM
CW said...
I have a better idea, lets rent space on the back of the chain gang shirts. I can see it now, Eat at Joes or Stanley Tools...maybe nothing works harder on bars than a Smith file/saw combo.
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10-12-2009 @ 10:11AM
otrpu said...
Watch the hacksaw companies line up.
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10-12-2009 @ 11:16AM
Angiebaby said...
I have no issue with advertisers buying space in a school newspaper to fund programs for the students. But school buses should not be rented out for advertising. They should remain clearly identified and maintained as school buses, not public announcements or other confusing colors, etc. Selling ads in the school paper is the new "going door to door selling whatever".
As for the prison newspaper, I have no problem with prisoners raising money by selling ad space, so long as the advertisers are monitored, and do not market fire arms, online dating services, or various and sundry other goods/services the prisoners are not allowed to have access to. And... so long as the newspapers are not mailed or sold to the general public. If prisoners are willing to attend programs for personal development and improvement, then this might be an additional way to help fund those programs.
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