One major girl influence I would define as anti-girl is Gossip Girl. An Ad Age article declares Alison Tarrant one of the 2008 Women to Watch.

It is the #1 show for girls 12-17. (Hello, Parents have you WATCHED this show? Make friends with the blocking system on your DVR already.)

The senior VP-integrated sales and marketing at the CW network has been one of the key people behind the scenes implementing innovative new commercials, including minutes-long "content wraps" and a prized integration in the buzzy rich-kids drama "Gossip Girl."

Some people might think Ms. Tarrant is playing with fire as she and the CW experiment with new ad formats. But a client that negotiates a "content wrap," which often consists of a series of longer ads or content pieces across an entire night of programming, probably stands out more in a consumer's mind than others who run normal ads in the same night. Likewise, when Verizon Wireless won a season-long integration in "Gossip Girl," it was poised to make more of an impression than its rivals, at least for the hour the program was on.

I can see what kind of marketing brilliance Ad Age sees in Ms. Tarrant, as I was a non-consenting hostage to one of her trashy porno Gossip Girl e-commercials one day when I innocently tried to open my mail. It is brilliant to essentially force all yahoo users to watch your ad by blocking the check mail buttons. And it is brilliant to encourage girls to post your ad on their websites, my space pages, blogs and email signatures.

Brilliant, but wrong.

I just have one little request: Ms. Tarrant - please use your marketing powers for good and not evil.

Here's a hypothetical question:

If The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty hired her away from The CW would this trash up the Dove Campaign or would it clean up Gossip Girl's marketing?

Read more:

Gossip Girl & R-A-P-E

Teen Sex Opera Pop Up

Image Source: Adage article.

This is Gossip Girl's new ad campaign. The only action I took was to open my email - And I am confronted with images of undressed teenagers in sexual positions. The pop up was strategically placed over my check mail buttons so I had no choice but to scroll over. Scrolling over runs a short soft porn movie featuring teenage kids.

The ad is marketing directly to tweens and teens (and likely DVRed by members of Nambla and other pedophiles) as the hip sex opera for KIDS, Gossip Girl.

We're not talking about "censorship" of the Playboy Channel here. We're talking about putting restrictions on what sexual positions the media is allowed to portray children in and how they are allowed to market it. And by sexual positions, I mean, are we to allow teens to be portrayed in doggy style in marketing before we finally get pissed enough to shout NO!

It gets worse. They aren't even having to pay for all the advertising. I got this widget by following the lures to get teenagers to post this on their own email, personal sites and blogs. Getting children to exploit themselves by posting free advertising that exploits and cheapens their sexuality is WRONG.

If you'll recall I had an issue with Gossip Girl editing a rape scene together with a consensual sex scene, effectively blurring the line between yes and no - glamorizing and romanticizing rape for their teenage audience. I cancelled the CW shortly after. But, they found me. As I'm sure they are finding all kids - regardless of parental attempts to shield our children from adult content. It's email - how many kids, tweens and teens get email?

This is unacceptable. One of the only tools we have is parental outrage.

Please join me in writing a letter to CBS - The CW's parent company - and express your disappointment and outrage in their marketing strategy for Gossip Girl. (click on "feedback" button in right sidebar).

Gossip Girl and R-A-P-E
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