You may have seen this great post at Outside the Toy Box about the book company, Scholastic in our schools.
Her point in her series of posts on the topic is that we all see Scholastic as a benign entity that promotes reading. Well…actually not, Scholastic is a $2 billion media company that publishes and distributes books (the world’s largest distributor of children’s books, in fact); produces feature films and television shows as well as, home videos and software.
Started in the 1920s as a magazine publisher they have rapidly grown into a media giant. Parents are probably most familiar with the book clubs and fairs in our schools. The business model for this division is to sell low cost books to children and parents. The marketing program includes a hefty dose of goodwill marketing – that is doing wonderful things like giving books away, enabling teachers to buy books for the classroom and sponsoring all sorts of charitable book giving and reading organizations.
All well and good….
However, Scholastic has had its ups and downs over the last 85 years. In the mid 80s, reacting to a shrinking child demographic, the company decided to expand into the entertainment business and created hit TV shows like Magic School Bus that complemented their core book selling business.
OK – good show, PBS aired. A little media never hurt anybody, especially if it is educational, commercial free and not all encompassing.
But, the plot thickens.
More recently faced with declining sales Scholastic chose to align itself with the exact same strategy that makes the toy industry so competitive and so very risky - licensing. You may not be aware that many the big toy companies live and die based on the value of their entertainment properties. Over 60% of toys sold are from licensed movie and TV tie-ins. (Actually this number may be higher…everyone seems to keep quoting a 1987 figure.)
This makes the toy industry really dependant on picking the right license. A flop can bring down an entire company. (It also tends to make the folks that work in the industry really nervous and edgy…I’ve been there, I know.)
And so, our venerable old book company decided to go the same route and hired a licensing guy to head up its consumer products division .
Ah Ha!
And that my friends, is why we see so many books in the Scholastic catalog tied in with movie and TV characters. The hand at the helm comes from the licensing business and has a track record of building successful businesses using licensing.
The licensing route is a viable business strategy. I’ve used licensing myself to sell products. It is however not without risk and not without potential backlash from parents.
Which is what we are seeing now.
My question is, is this an appropriate strategy for an 85 year old company whose credo is:
Helping Children around the World to Read and Learn
IMHO there are better ways to achieve corporate goals than falling prey to a strategy that exposes company stockholders to the great risk inherent in pursuing a licensing strategy.
(Incidentally, Scholastic isn’t doing so well right now because of just this up and down nature of the business.)
There are better ways to grow a company’s business and create loyal brand consumers by sticking with the core business strategy (sticking with their knitting in marketing terms) than going after a consumer that is notoriously fickle when it comes to the “hot” license of the year.
And it annoys parents.
By luring consumers to licensed product, Scholastic builds consumer loyalty to the license brand not the Scholastic brand. Admittedly, this is OK as a strategy when it is a Scholastic owned license, but it still leaves them vulnerable to changing tastes.
Hey Scholastic, why not focus on buying smaller companies that publish wonderful books rather than licenses for vacuous properties? Why not make a name as a publisher of great books rather than one of cheap ones? The margins on beautiful, well made books surely make up for the volume to be made on millions of cheap ones (not even considering the licensing fees involved).
It seems more like a well, Scholastic- like strategy.
Did you enjoy this post…or at least found it interesting?
9 comments:
I totally get what you're saying, and I agree for my own kids.
I used to teach at a lower-income school though, where reading was SO far down on the list of my kids' priorities. Like it or not, that stuff does sell, and if my troublemaker kid who ordinarily tells me reading is boring and won't do it WILL sit down and read Captain Underpants or some movie-tie-in book, I was just happy he was reading.
Scholastic is cheaper than buying stuff in the stores a lot of times, and I figured with that, something was better than nothing.
I hear you. I would rather spend the $10 on a library card (okay, they are usually free, but we end up needing replacements every once in a while), than spend money on cheap, going to fall apart Clifford, Dora, Hello Kitty, etc type books. I love when my kids have their own imaginations and can visualize the story in their minds without a pre-conceived notion of what the story should be about.
Scholastic does have some DVDs that we enjoy with the classic kid books read on them such as: Harold and the Purple Crayon, Where the Wild Things Are, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and some other non-tv show related favorites.
The thing with any 'book club' is that you (collective you!) only tend to look at and compare what the club has to offer, instead of opening up the entire literary world.
Great post, as usual!
Very interesting, NQCP -- thanks for the insights. I'm thrilled to see others talking about this!
Who owns Scholastic these days?
Nice entry. I wouldn't care one way or the other if the "school market" weren't such a focus.
Another reason that Scholastic isn't doing as well is the switch in many huge districts such as LAUSD (#2 in size) from whole language instruction which promotes teachers having *huge* classroom libraries and using trade books in instruction to scripted basal programs such as OCR. I spent so much money on my classroom library when in NJ that I have thousands of Scholastic "bonus points" to use here in LA. But, the focus is not on reading trade books, so I haven't spent them. I know other teachers who used to buy a lot from Scholastic book clubs but have also cut back as their programs have changed.
I go through the book order and tell the kids to pick the good books. I also show them some of the crappy toy tie ins that I have. They never are anything like the picture. Still, reading about Pokemon is reading. And, even Jim Trelease will tell you that any reading is good.
Just wanted to comment quickly on the "something is better than nothing" and "any reading is good" -- yes, yes, I agree (well, mostly - I can think of some unacceptable reading...), but I think it's important that we avoid the mindset that some kids will only read these books. I just don't believe that without media tie ins or books that are advertisements (e.g., Tonka trucks, cheerios, etc.) that reluctant readers would never read. It might be challenging, but I would argue that if a teacher/parent/friend can find books that are relevant to the child -- deal with favorite interests, talk about kids like them, utilize humor, offer fantastic alternate realities, etc. that most kids would respond well.
If SpongeBob is the only "hobby" or interest that a particular child has, then there are issues well beyond reading that are probably in need of address. Certainly, this is an approach that requires more work than just handing over Strawberry Shortcake Goes to School, but given the research on the effects of conumer culture on children, I would say it's work that is worth doing.
It's easier to feed kids mac and cheese every night than to provide healthy dinners, but we share an understanding that the work required to have the fruit, veggie, protien etc. is important for kids' well being, so we do it. I'd like a little less mac and cheese in our classrooms.
Clapping Loudly Mom!
First...Jane, who is a teacher in the inner city is one of my favorite bloggers - check out her blog!
... but I was trying to decide how to respond to her and to several folks who mentioned that "any reading is good reading" - you hit the nail on the head!
Mom - great comment. I really like your analogy with the mac-and-cheese.
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