Kellogg's and footbag- a moral dilemma!

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Dr. Drew
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Kellogg's and footbag- a moral dilemma!

Post by Dr. Drew » 23 Jan 2014 12:49

Call out to footbaggers--I’m in a moral dilemma! Last week I was super-psyched when a local organization in London contacted me requesting that I teach a group of 6-8 kids, 8-12 yrs. old, how to footbag. (Thanks guys for pointing them in my direction- a real honor to represent freestyle footbag in the UK, a game I’ve loved playing for 30 years now.) The communications unfolded with the week, and I pieced together the puzzle myself, as they were really not upfront with the actual cause--Kellogg’s! After researching on the net, I read all the Modified comments I could find on Kellogg’s marketing campaign using footbag in the past years. I also read both the pro-Kellogg’s information publicized by Kellogg’s itself, and also it’s political controversies-- the latest being last week.
A “lock out” in Memphis of some 600-800 predominantly Afro-American workers leaving them with immediate payroll and health benefits cut off because they voted against a having their hours scaled back, so that other part-timers could enter and subsequently reducing the financial responsibilities desired by Kellogg’s (health, family, and dental insurance/paid vacation, I believe). Workers rallied last week against the biggest multi-national cereal company in the world. Paradoxically , the “rehearsals” or footbag lessons are taking place in a typically African neighborhood, Hackney, east London and I imagine that there will be a good representation of African-English in the group seeing as how all my contacts seem also to be. Hypocrisy?
Added to the controversy is the actual products that Kellogg’s markets as “healthy foods,” if you can even still call them “foods,”--Pop Tarts, Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, Fruit Loops, Coco Puffs to name but a few, are some of the most typical American junk “foods.” They spell: diabetes, A.D.D., hypertension, cancer, immune system disorder, etc. All of these products use GMO ingredients and who knows what the effects of GMO will have on our health, our planet and on millions of families who’s husbands are committing suicide in India to get out of the vicious Mon Santo cycle! I grew up on those products in the United States and can say that the nutritional value would be about equivalent to cardboard topped off with sugar. Can we imagine the footbag burn out fueling your game on that junk food? Personally, I’ve been following healthy food lifestyle path for over 18 years going from vegetarian, to organic vegan, now organic and wild high-raw foods...as I said moral dilemma!
To add to it, these crap “Rio Balls or Footy bags”(maybe better used as pin cushions instead of footbags) you guys have repeatedly mentioned used by Kellogg’s should be arriving in time for the filming of the “performance.” I currently work as a bespoke men’s suit tailor in London; my first hand-stitching was learned from a traveling homeless dude, Mike Patterson, in Vermont, USA, some 17 years ago. He taught me how to sew 4-6-8-12-20-32 panel footbags. I still sew made-to-measure bags of the finest hand stitching quality. I’ve already told them that even the best footbaggers would look like crap playing with those bags--so they want to practice with my beginner bags, then film with theirs. Oh man! As I mentioned it has been a story that I have had to piece together myself over the last week, as they were never upfront and direct telling me something to the notion of:
“We want you to teach our kids footbag to promote Kellogg’s marketing of its “Rio Ball” for the up-coming Worlds football tournament.” (...using our cheep knock-off sweet-shop-labor hacky-sacks). Being totally transparent (surely someone will ask anyway) thinking this was some innocent local footbag initiative, I agreed to a very modest payment of £250 for two 3 hour lessons and one 8-10 hour day of filming. Now I’m aware of the multi-trillion-dollar behind it--with sales of some $10 million a day based in 160 countries around the world! Castings already happened a few days ago and first lesson is tomorrow. Should I go and teach? Drop the whole deal? Go feel it out? Footbaggers, I would kindly appreciate your advice.

Pasquar
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Re: Kellogg's and footbag- a moral dilemma!

Post by Pasquar » 23 Jan 2014 14:44

Wow, from the title I didn't think this would be worth reading, but there's a lot there!

My gut reaction would be to scrap it as it does sound like a selfish marketing scheme for themselves. It would be great to still get in contact with the kids if that would be possible (and turn them onto real footbag with hand-stitched bags =P)
Nick Pasquarello


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Jeremy
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Re: Kellogg's and footbag- a moral dilemma!

Post by Jeremy » 23 Jan 2014 15:17

There are studies of literally millions of people going back decades that demonstrate GMOs are no more dangerous than conventional food. Every major scientific organisation in the world, including the Royal Academy, The National Academy of Sciences, Lancet, Nature and the American Medical Association have carried out meta analysis and found no danger. Nor is there any plausible manner in which genetic engineering could produce crops that are inherently more dangerous than conventional plant breeding. At least on that basis, you have nothing to worry about.

The health issues mainly relate to people who don't balance their energy intake with their energy output, and eating high energy foods means you have to expend a lot of energy. You've probably heard of "carb loading" - where athletes eat a large mainly carb meal before serious events to help achieve peak performance. Cereal is good for that.

There's also nothing hypocritical about locking out a group of people who happen to be of a particular race, and also doing a marketing campaign involving people of that same race. That's silly. They're completely different groups of people.

Is that £250 total? That's far less than I would charge. I tend to charge about $100 AUD for 5 minute demonstration up to a short class lesson. In terms of filming, when I've been in commercials before, the rate is more like $2000 a day.

However if teaching children are involved, I usually agree to do it regardless of the payment, including doing it for free, because I have a vague hope that one or two of them will continue to pay, but it's worth saying that in the cases where I've done free demos or lessons, it's also been for organisations without the ability to pay, or to pay much - community groups or schools etc.

Obviously you have to make your own decisions, but were it me, I'd start by asking for a realistic payment. After that, what I'd do would depend on my financial situation weighed against my ethics. I'm a realist, and realistically whether or not you participate will have no effect on the company or the marketing scheme, so either you can do the job, get the money, and possibly expose footbag to some people, or they can get any soccer player to do the same thing. I understand there are a few in England. When I was a student I would have definitely done it, because I needed the money. These days, working in an above average paid job, I tend to turn down most demos that don't seem to be likely to promote footbag at all, and aren't well paid, unless they happen to be at a convenient place and time.

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Jeremy
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Re: Kellogg's and footbag- a moral dilemma!

Post by Jeremy » 23 Jan 2014 15:19

Sorry, no edit. I have a typo. I wrote "However if teaching children are involved, I usually agree to do it regardless of the payment, including doing it for free, because I have a vague hope that one or two of them will continue to pay", but the last word should be "play."

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