William Weldon

May 2, 2007

William Weldon
Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson

First inductee into the Public Education Hall of Shame

 

The new owners of Channel One are bringing back product ads to the in-school TV show. Virtually all product advertisers have disappeared from the show over the last three years.

Alloy, Inc. have bought a ticking time bomb. Channel One is a money-losing enterprise with high expenses and low income. Add to that miserable situation, Channel One’s inventory of ancient TV equipment needs to be replaced.

A Neutrogena ad ran on Monday making it the first new product ad on Channel One News since the Alloy purchase.

Obligation has establish a Public Education Hall of Shame for all companies and their CEOs that use Channel One News to hawk products to students during their school time. Neutrogena is owned by Johnson & Johnson and their CEO is William Weldon, therefore Mr. Weldon gets the "honor" of being our first member of the Hall of Shame.

Johnson & Johnson are running 30-second ads for Neutrogena Acne Stress Control on Channel One. If three million students on any given day watch Channel One News, then Johnson & Johnson are robbing students of 25,000 student hours. This is time that could have been used for studying English, math or history. Instead Mr. Weldon is propping up a failed commercial TV show that the vast majority of public schools have rejected. Mr. Weldon’s company wants kids to sacrifice their school time so Johnson & Johnson executives can make more moola.

 

Other companies have refused to run ads on Channel One News. Neutrogena has no such qualms. "Put down your books, class. We want to make you feel ugly, so you will buy our expensive product."

The new Alloy/Channel One is all about advertising. They have to be. They will go bankrupt if ad revenue doesn’t pick up soon.

This model doesn’t have acne. She was hired to show how wonderful the Neutrogena product is. Channel One has a "media literacy" question of the day on their web site. It NEVER questions the advertising on its show. How convenient.

Johnson & Johnson’s ad people use scientific sounding words to make their product seem more effective. This is a common technique in advertising. When this technique is used on young people it is unfair and contemptible.