TESCO: Sport for Schools and Clubs
Name:
Sport for Schools and Clubs
Sponsor:
TESCO Ireland
In Brief
Recommendation:
We strongly oppose this scheme which we regard as pressurising and highly commercial. While acknowledging the inadequate government funding for PE equipment, we ask schools to respect the rights of students to a commercially unbiased education and the right of parents to shop where they choose
Objective:
“to encourage kids to have a go at sport and keep themselves fit and healthy”.
Classification:
Incentive Scheme – voucher collection.
Year: 2005 (1st year)
Past Record:
Tesco launched their first incentive scheme (Computers for Schools) in Ireland in 1997. It has been a huge success for the company, winning awards for “Cause Related Marketing” (BITC 1998) and becoming an established part of the school calendar in this country.
Materials:
When registered, schools receive a promotional poster featuring prominent sports stars, a collection box, target chart and order form. A catalogue indicates the equipment on offer and the number of vouchers required – from 23 to 65,511. Vouchers are obtained at Tesco supermarkets nationwide in return for €10 worth of shopping.
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High
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Fair
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Low
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Curricular Relevance |
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Logo/Brand
Presence |
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Influence on Spending |
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Comments:
Like many incentive schemes Tesco’s newest creation is based on the commercial principle that the more you shop the better the educational resources available to your child. At €10 a token it may be wondered whether any of the equipment on offer is truly “free”. For example a “free” captain’s armband (price €3.50 on www.scoilbuy.ie at the time of publishing this review) requires schools to account for €900 worth of parents’ shopping. It is anticipated that Irish schools will collect several millions of these vouchers in a single year, representing huge revenues for the supermarket.
The bright posters, celebrity endorsement, collection boxes and target chart act to raise awareness of the scheme and the brand in the school. Requests for tokens are also commonly made to parents through newsletters and websites. The limited time (10 weeks) which schools have to raise the often tens of thousands of vouchers ensures that the pressure is on to get children collecting. A school publicly appealing for proof of purchase from a particular store contravenes the official directive that parents be put under no pressure to purchase a particular product. (Circular 39/91) The endorsement by teachers, principals and children’s peer group of Tesco may lead children to pester parents to direct their purchases especially for this scheme.
Recommendation:
We strongly oppose this scheme which we regard as pressurising and highly commercial. While acknowledging the inadequate government funding for PE equipment, we ask schools to respect the rights of students to a commercially unbiased education and the right of parents to shop where they choose.
The Department of Education discontinued the PE equipment grant in 2002 after only two years. A 2005 report by the ESRI into children’s sports in Ireland concluded that
In general, however, sports facilities in schools, and perhaps especially in primary schools, need to be improved, particularly in regard to facilities needed for indoor activities. (Tony Fahey, Liam Delaney and Brenda Gannon, School Children And Sport In Ireland (Dublin: ESRI, 2005), p90.)
The inception of this new scheme, along with its competitor from SuperValu, shows how gaps in State funding of schools may be exploited for commercial gain. We regard the expansion of the Tesco schemes into the area of sporting equipment to be a worrying indication of the growing commercial presence in schools. It is simply not the job of teacher or school to direct parental shopping, to endorse one supermarket over another or to do the work of commercial marketers.
