Attitudes of school directors towards in‐school marketing: an exploratory study

Defines in‐school or marketing as the development of marketing activities towards schoolchildren, and reports research on the attitudes to it of some Belgian school directors. Reviews previous literature on the effectiveness of marketing to children, and the advantages and disadvantages of in‐school marketing; activities included sponsoring, lectures, vending machines, saving actions, advertising, and non‐commercial activities. Outlines the research methodology used, which involved a questionnaire to 2,600 school directors and interviews with five to elicit their views, ranging from pragmatic tolerance of commercial activities, companies’ societal and educational role, restriction of products sold to healthy and environmentally friendly ones, to a view of company activities as necessarily exploitative.