Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Are liquor gift cards inappropriate teacher gifts?


According to Metro, this on-site promo from Ontario's liquor monopoly is not sitting well with parents:
Parents watching their kids play outside the Waterfront School at the foot of Bathurst Street on Monday afternoon were surprised by the campaign, and felt LCBO ads shouldn’t appear geared to kids. 
“Why target children?” asked a flabbergasted Jackie Allen, who was there to pick up her son Jaden, 7. “Since when is it OK for kids to give liquor to their teachers?”
The response from the LCBO, quite naturally, is that this online seasonal are not targeted to children. It's for the parents.

My wife is an elementary school teacher, and she occasionally gets LCBO gift cards from parents. It's a  welcome gift, and avoids the awkwardness of sending your child to school with a bottle of Chianti.

Perhaps the real scandal here is Metro going out of its way to manufacture outrage.

To review, here is the extent of their research:
Parents watching their kids play outside the Waterfront School at the foot of Bathurst Street on Monday afternoon were surprised by the campaign, and felt LCBO ads shouldn’t appear geared to kids.
That's right. They apparently ambushed some parents, showed them the "ad" out of context, and pressed for reactions. Poor.

2 comments:

  1. Exactly what are kids doing browsing the LCBO website anyway? It's a liquor store and they're too young to buy.

    So surely the point is null and void - unless you want to get into the parental monitoring of browsing habits arguments...

    Here in the UK, a bottle of something nice is fairly commonplace at the end of terms, for special teachers. And why not?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's our prohibition hangover, Neil. It never seems to end.

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