LOS ANGELES — The Real Tooth Fairies have encountered a pair of fangs.
The advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood typically goes after the likes of Disney and McDonald’s, but its newest crusade centers on an unusually tiny company: TheRealToothFairies.com.
Aimed at girls 5 to 10 years old, the site sells themed merchandise (lost tooth organizer, $12.99) and offers games meant to promote kindness. For a fee, users can enter a role-playing world.
In a July 16 news release and Huffington Post column, the director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Susan Linn, criticized the Web company for what she termed its “sexualized” fairies, whom she found to be “largely preoccupied with appearance, shopping, boyfriends — and leg hair!”
Ms. Linn argued that exploiting a childhood institution was particularly crass.
But what made her really angry was an investor video she discovered in the recesses of the Web.
Prepared by the start-up for nonpublic use, the video discusses revenue opportunities associated with lost teeth, emphasizing the number of baby teeth that girls lose annually, about 200 million. “And biology guarantees that will never stop,” a voice says.
TheRealToothFairies.com had YouTube remove the video, and hoped to move on. The site’s founder, Marilyn Bollinger, a North Carolina social worker and children’s book author, did not want to discuss the video when reached by telephone.
“Our focus is on the positive,” she said. “We have such a sweet, sweet brand. We hear from parents that we’re making a lot of happy memories.”
But moving on can be difficult in the Internet age.
Last week, Ms. Linn kept up the attack on Twitter and Facebook, nudging bloggers and the news media to pay attention. She noted, for instance, that a shorter version of the video appears on the investment site Gust.com.
Her campaign might seem akin to shooting a flea with a cannon. Ms. Linn conceded that it was unusual for her organization to go after a start-up, but she said that the site was focused on growth, and that the stature of the people involved with it required her to take the site seriously.
Ms. Bollinger’s husband, Howard, a former Hasbro executive who is the start-up’s chief financial officer, and Paul Yanover, a former Disney executive and now president of Fandango.com, appeared in the video.
A spokesman for Mr. Yanover said he only had a brief consulting role and no longer had anything to do with the site.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/business/media/outcry-against-a-tooth-fairy-web-site.html?partner=rss&emc=rss