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news

Back to the Future Shop

By David Topping

It’s amazing that no-one involved seems to think that this might be a bad idea: Future Shop is donating $50,000 each to make over the computer labs of two as-of-yet unnamed Toronto high schools that are within seven kilometres of a Future Shop store, in exchange for branding the labs with the company’s colours. Future Shop has “some design element[s] that they would like to see common to all labs,” notes the Globe. “The labs are to be painted a light grey with a red border, Future Shop’s trademark colours. The possibility of naming the labs after the company has yet to be discussed.” Great. It’s not that Future Shop’s philanthropy is in and of itself bad; it’s more that it absolutely shouldn’t be necessary to help schools grow, and that schools really shouldn’t be accepting paid advertising, in any form.

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  • http://wesshepherdphotographers.com wesshepherd

    Isn’t it about time that we all realized that the TDSB has a lower moral standard than most of the lovely ladies working the street corners of this fair city.

  • http://null Gauldar

    They can even provide a teacher’s assistant which informs the children about the great deals at future shop, direct them to go there for school supplies. Ahh well, the money has to come from somewhere, may as well throw their future to the corps since high schools are an untapped resource. Reminds me or the Lifesavers daycare idea where children can sing the same songs they hear in the TV commercials together and coexist with each other with all the colours of the rainbow! Please hand me the screwdriver, I need to shove it in my eye socket.

  • http://null Paul Kishimoto

    Pushing consumer electronics is the world’s second-oldest profession.

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    You mean huge corporations don’t make tax-deductible donations out of the goodness of their hearts?! I’m sure their PR materials don’t mention that the donations come with promotional conditions.
    I’m not anti-advertising in the least, but funding an elementary or high school through advertising contracts just doesn’t sit well at all, and while Future Shop’s colour scheme dictations may seem minor, I can imagine more egregious conditions from other sponsors.

  • http://null ked

    If teen high school movies have taught me anything then this can’t work. What if the rival school’s colours are red and grey?

  • http://null Vincent Clement

    it’s more that it absolutely shouldn’t be necessary to help schools grow, and that schools really shouldn’t be accepting paid advertising, in any form.
    Oh, please. If a local store or ‘mom and pop’ shop paid for something at a local school, Torontoist would be gushing with platitudes. But when a large corporation does something, it is bad.
    For what it’s worth, I think donations of any kind are most definitely needed to help schools grow or evolve. It’s called community involvement. When you rely solely on government funding, the school systems ceases to be public. Instead it becomes a government school – there is no need to get the community involved.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    Um—okay. What, Vincent?
    Unless my understanding of democracy is crazily off: we elect (with votes) and pay for (with taxes) the government. It is by definition public and propelled by community involvement—the public chooses and re-chooses who represents them. Future Shop’s explicit, primary, necessary mandate is to profit, not to represent the community that they are part of; representing the community’s interests is the government’s (and politicians’) job, and we elect them or don’t elect them based on how well they fulfill that mandate. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make money, but the profit-making end goal of businesses is precisely why it’s good to keep government/public institutions separate from them, whether they’re “mom and pop” stores or huge national corporations.
    “When you rely solely on government funding, the school systems ceases to be public”? Uh, no. That is exactly wrong; it’s the government funding that makes schools public. And it’s the lack of government—public—funding that is precisely the problem here.

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    I sure wouldn’t want to see our kids exposed to advertising.

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    I long for the days when the advertising at school was the cheap-ass business card kind in the back of the yearbook for local joints like Paris Fashion Unisex Hair Salon or Angelo’s Motor & Wreckage. But I’m showing my age.

  • http://null canuck1975

    I wonder if the HS I went to would be up for this. It’s within a KM of a FS. It’s hard up for cash (seeing as it’s being torn down and rebuilt with Tridel’s money). It’s colours are red and gray, so the design requirements aren’t a stretch.
    Hey North Toronto: Get in on this while you can!

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    >Uh, no. That is exactly wrong; it’s the government funding that makes schools public. And it’s the lack of government—public—funding that is precisely the problem here.
    EXACTLY!!!!
    The root of the problem is that Canada’s public school system (and medicare) is being systematically killed by certain groups within government (yes, I realize a totally other discussion).
    Once you start to accept your way of thinking (anything is better than nothing, regardless who provides it) you’re only helping this unfortunate agenda.
    Everyone in Canada deserves a QUALITY education and we should be demanding this from our government instead of allowing any sort of corporate intervention into these public spaces because our communities and governments have failed.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    >seeing as it’s being torn down and rebuilt with Tridel’s money
    That makes me sick to my stomach. Ugh. Disgusting.

  • http://undefined Vincent Clement

    Receiving government funding does not make something public. You want to believe in that romantic notion that public schools are responsive to the community, but nothing could be further from the truth. I can tell you that, for the most part, schools are not very responsive to community involvement, except when said schools ‘need’ the community for whatever reason.
    The curriculum is determined by the government. The funding formula is determined by the government. Classroom sizes, you guessed it, the government. Let’s not even go into the whole union issue and the restrictions it places on the ‘public’ system.
    Based on your understanding of democracy, people choose a government and based on community involvement, that government reflects the will of the people. So, how can government funding of schools be a problem? After all, the government is just doing what the people want it to do, right?
    Lack of funding isn’t the problem. Lack of choice is. You could double the education budget and your beloved public system would still be strangled with government and union restrictions. But hey, there is government funding which makes it public, so there must be community involvement, and things would be better if we just throw more money at it, right?

  • http://undefined Skippy the Magical Racegoat

    Rogers bought naming rights for practically half of Ryerson and it wasn’t not the end of the world. There were sneers at first, but most people don’t even notice.
    To tell you the truth, I see many benefits to allowing partnerships between the private sector and the world of academia. Governments can only spend so much on higher education; industry is going to bombard us with advertising anyway. I’d rather they spend their marketing budget on improving universities instead of renting another annoying billboard for a month. Besides, the private sector is exactly what their education is preparing for, so why pretend it’s more sacred than it is?
    Now, if the Department of Nutritional Sciences was being sponsored by Denny’s, that might be a different story…

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    I think there’s a difference between advertising to adults in universities and colleges versus kids in their direct school environment—especially within the actual classrooms.