Ypulse Youth Site Profile: Admongo.gov
Posted by meredith on 04-30-2010
Earlier this week in Essentials we announced the launch of Admongo.gov a new edutainment initiative from the Federal Trade Commission and its Bureau of Consumer Production, to educate tweens about advertising literacy. As promised, we checked it out for ourselves. Here’s the scoop…
What it is: Admongo.gov is an educational online game, featuring pretend products (though similar to actual products), as well as educational materials for teachers and students that will be distributed by Scholastic.
Who it’s for: 8-12 year-olds (the curricula is available for 5th and 6th grade classrooms)
What Works: Any genuine effort to advance media literacy through fun, digestible means like educational games is worth saluting in our book. If the FTC can get Admongo into classrooms or classroom-like environments (libraries, after-school programs like The LAMP, an org we featured on Ypulse last year), I think it could definitely prove to be a positive first step towards helping tweens develop a more critical eye when it comes to spotting and understanding advertisements. Prompting players to answer the questions like “Who is responsible for the ad?” “What is the ad actually saying?” and “What does the ad want me to do?” is clearly a great place to start*.
As for the actual playing part, Admongo is a pretty standard one-player video game. After customizing your avatar (nice to see this extend to skin, nose, eyes, etc.) you set out to “spot the ads” at which point you get a mini-lesson (“this bus is a rolling advertisement”) and have the chance to answer a bonus question for 500 points (multiple choice “What is this ad trying to get you to do?”). Was it super-thrilling? Not so much. But if the choice was between that and a lecture, there’s no question which would have more appeal. Plus, the graphics weren’t too baby-ish, the music wasn’t obnoxious, and even though the voiceovers sounded like a teacher, they were brief. In short, it was as much fun as I’d expect from a video game designed for the classroom…
Challenges: I included the asterisk above because the game itself is clearly intended to just be a start. And if the lesson began and ended there, it wouldn’t be enough. To really determine how effective this initiative will be, and whether it will serve as a launching point for deeper conversations about print and digital advertising (where the waters get especially murky), we’d have to evaluate the in-class components as well. I glanced at the materials myself, but like all syllabi what really counts is the execution. This is where I see potential for countering the “non-judgmental” nature (the pro-consumerism called out by Gawker as “indoctrination”) with a more nuanced analysis of the advertising industry (for instance, the Elmo/ Broccoli study). That said, I’d love to hear how many educators and/or parents plan on adopting the program into their schools and what their take is on making the in-school curricula jump off the page. In capable hands, like the folks at aforementioned org The LAMP, this has real promise. As I said in my post after the CARU Conference when FTC first announced this initiative, this is an all hands on deck type of cause.
For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection
Categorized under: Youth Marketing