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Sleeping pills for children, exploding laptops, lead toys. There is a lot of dubious stuff out there. Lots of dangerous, bad-for you, waste-of-money products that are brazenly pitched to you and me, the hapless consumer. Sometimes the products are so bad you almost have to admire the companies with the chutzpah to put them out there. Almost.
Consumer activists had the same idea. But with a twist. Today, leading global consumer rights groups met in Sydney, Australia to hand out awards for the worst products and the companies that make them. The Consumers International World Congress hopes to hold major corporations accountable for their unrepentant and irresponsible hucksterism.
The envelope, please? And the winners of the 2007 International Bad Products Awards are:
Mattel, Inc. (NYSE: MAT) - Makers of beloved children's toys, much of it covered with lead paint from its many manufacturing plants in China, tops the list of bad products. The company recalled more than 21 million toys from around the world in a seven-week period in 2007. The CEO first blamed China, then admitted the problem lay more with company product design-flaws. The group writes: "This is a classic case of avoiding accountability and shifting responsibility on a global scale. Wherever the fault lies, the safety of consumers was compromised, and this should be the full focus of Mattel's attention, not finger pointing and not blame dodging."
Barbie is gonna be, like, so bummed when she hears about this.
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) - For unabashedly marketing packaged tap water. While the company rightly points out that the packaging on its popular Dasani brand bottled water doesn't explicitly *say* it's spring water, it doesn't specifically not, either. The product can't even be sold in the UK, France or Germany. But why should Coke change its tactic and give us the real thing when the product continues to sell briskly in the U.S. and South America? The group writes: "By bottling up this universal resource to sell back to us, corporations, such as Coca-Cola, have created a $100 billion industry at a time when one billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water. Making profits out of increasingly fragile water supplies is unsustainable, irresponsible, and against the basic rights of consumers everywhere. "
Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) - For selling junk food to kids. They're GRRRRREEEAAAT!....if you like rolls of fat on your kid's back. Kellogg is king in terms of marketing, known the world over for its food products and breakfast cereals, in particular its sugary kids' cereals. The company recently told the New York Times that 27% of its U.S. advertising budget was spent on targeting kids under 12. But with childhood obesity on the upswing, critics charge that the company has a responsibility to stop marketing its high-sugar, high-fat crap food to kids. A Mexican consumer group (and member of Consumers International) was successful pulling a Frosted Flakes ad off the air. The ad promised that kids could develop amazing physical attributes by eating the cereal...when in fact, Mexican Frosted Flakes contain 40% sugar. The company has agreed to amend some of its advertising, but it's sure dragging its feet. Maybe it's that sugar crash.
Finally, for Best of Show:
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.-- For pitching sleeping pills to kids. The U.S. arm of this $10 billion Japanese pharma company took out a "reminder" ad on U.S. airwaves, using school buses, pictures of chalk boards and the like to remind users that "it's back to school season," time to reorder your sleeping pills.
Huh? Big Pharma can be shameless, we know. But which Madison Avenue think tank came up with this one? While the ad technically met FDA advertising criteria, it was rather strongly slanted toward children, for which the medication is not deemed safe. Critics screamed foul, but it still took the FDA six months to get around to telling Takeda to get the ad off the air. CI says, "This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products...and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behavior."
The PR folks at these companies are probably not going to have a nice Halloween, dealing with the fall-out from these "awards." But then that's just the point.
And at least none of the companies cited are in the business of making Halloween costumes. Saturday Night Live fans may want to take a trip down memory lane with this video:
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
11-02-2007 @ 3:09PM
toownroad2003 said...
Lisa, Chris, I have to agree with you.
11-02-2007 @ 3:12PM
Patricia said...
DASANI is not only tap water but CocaCola, Inc. adds SALT to it in order to make you thirsty so you want another one!! AMAZING. It is actually listed on the ingredients - although who reads ingredients when buying WATER???!!! Shame on you CocaCola ... SHAME!
11-02-2007 @ 4:22PM
Michele said...
Please do not assume the parents are in complete control of their children. They are at school for hours a day.
I have battled the school for years to forbid teachers giving their students candy for a reward. I have three girls, but my middle child has no self-control and the teachers don't get it. Now that she's in middle school, it has slowed down, but my daughter's friends bring junk to school, and she gets it from them as well.
As to the suggestion that people grow their own food - are you aware that some of us aren't lucky enough to own homes? I'm not even allowed to keep plants on my little porch.
And if you live in an apartment, there is no backyard to play in and no safe street to ride a bike on. I drive my children to the park when I can, but that's not always possible. And how much exercise is possible when they have two hours or homework a night? Even my kindergartener has half an hour of homework a day.
There is no television in my home - no cable, no DVD or VHS player, no functioning anything. We have no video games. It is peaceful.
I also won't buy things with high fructose corn syrup. It causes many, many problems and is a highly processed product that is in most of the products you can buy. Most people aren't aware of how bad this item is. Some believe it short-circuits the chemical system that tells us when we're full. Experiments have SHOWN that it wreaks havoc with our systems and increasing insulin resistance. Yet it is there, in everything we eat, because people don't think the government should be protecting us from harmful products. That certainly doesn't help the parents who are trying to keep their children healthy.
Yes, we parents can and should say no. However, the government can and should restrict what items are put into our food so that one doesn't have to become a scientist to know when there are unhealthy things in the ingredient list.
11-02-2007 @ 4:31PM
Brandy said...
I'll give Dasani this: It tasted better than our "safe" tap water that has a distinct chlorine aftertaste. It doesn't turn my bathtub yellow, either.
11-02-2007 @ 4:37PM
JoJo said...
I don't see why there is so much whining about bottled water, and especially coca-cola...it's a LAW that at least 30% of the water in "pure spring water" has to come from municipal water sources (aka the "faucet")
Besides, most spring water is full of nice little microbes that will make you sick...so you're not really drinking "spring water" anyway.
11-02-2007 @ 7:25PM
RD said...
For all the sugar that Frosted Flakes has, it actually has a low glycemic index (55) which means that it raises blood sugar slower than higher glycemic foods. This is lower than the glycemic index for Corn Flakes or Rice Chex. It is also fortified with vitamins and minerals like other breakfast cereals and can be included in a healthy, balanced breakfast. It is not the cereal itself that is contributing to obesity, people are just eating too much of it...and everything else for that matter.
11-02-2007 @ 7:53PM
ANON said...
Dear Mariah aka comment 7.,
- Before you bust a gut, hon...
"7. Between all the drugs they have for kids during the the day....they come up with sleeping pills?
How many kids died/got ill before they admitted they were dangerous...good job TELKADA...FDA.
and all the other corporates whores....HOPE IT WAS WORTH THE PROFIT."
- Ta-ke-da is a Japanese company (Hint: more than one syllable is usually Japanese. One syllable is usually Chinese...)
"So how about we just stop buying anthing from China? Let them keep their lead......and bring back American made everything. "
- and your computer Mariah, it was made in the USA? Wow - what brand? I want one...
Howza 'bout you go rid your house of eveything NOT "American made" - that incl. WalMart and Costco!
Posted at 1:52AM on Oct 31st 2007 by Mariah
11-02-2007 @ 7:54PM
suzy f said...
these obnoxious folks pimping their crap on blogs are actually posted by an automated advertising program. When I registered a domain name via GoDaddy they offered it to me, too. It searches for key words (like "children") and then posts to the blog - supposedly by impersonating an individual post-er.
If you want to actually get their attention, the best bet is to goto the URL they are pimping for and send a complaint to their contact" link...
I did...
11-03-2007 @ 2:34PM
Shannon said...
Sleeping pills, Ugh!!!!!
I actually know someone that was taking a perscription sleeping pill "Ambien", and woke up in the Hospital 4 days later, finding out he had actually died, because while asleep he shot himself, sleep dreaming, walking, ???? He was appalled he hadn't wanted to die just to be able to sleep. What is in these pills? Why do they continue to perscribe these, the ads actually now say if you sleep walk, drive, eat, cook or otherwize have sleep related amnesia to contact your Doctor WHAT???? DON'T GIVE THESE PILLS TO OUR CHILDREN. JUST SAY NO....
11-05-2007 @ 3:21PM
marty said...
Based on this article they must be a worthless organization. The comment about people billions being without safe water says it all. Like if Coke didn't bottle water these billions would suddenly have some. Coke's water is processed. Who cares if it comes from a spring? Idiots can't find a real job.