A Seventeen-Year-Long Commercial Advertisement

The last time you were aboard an airplane, in the seat pocket in front of you was a magazine or two. That underwhelming display of crumpled magazines actually represents a million-dollar marketing campaign, and if you know the odds which advertisers take on such materials, the Agenda being forced on kids in public schools makes much more sense.

Called “in-flight literature,” airlines have supplied it in some form since at least the 1950s. Marketers quickly realized the value of captive audiences. Originally magazine publishers would bid to have their publications distributed on an airline’s flights, a practice which still occurs on some airlines. More commonplace today is that major airlines publish their own magazines, filled with stories about attractive destinations which a given airline just happens to serve -- selling the sizzle before the steak! Of course, which stories to print… which swanky hotel to promote out of the selection for a given destination, all this is determined by bids from the entities themselves amounting to millions of dollars on any given year.

For the millions of advertising dollars poured into in-flight literature, the prospects for return are remarkably low. Only 7% of passengers will even look at it. Of those 7%, barely 1% will actually purchase whatever is being sold, and on average no airline will see those passengers again for another 2.5 years.

Contrast those odds now with the educational-industrial complex. Whereas in-flight marketers spend millions to influence you for around 4.1 hours every 2.5 years, those marketing to institutional schools have 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 audiences for seven hours a day, five days a week, thirty-six weeks a year… for the next seventeen years! Certain foundations spend billions of dollars to influence young, impressionable minds over the course of schooling, as from a marketing standpoint, they’d be stupid not to.

Those hoping to roll back the tide of the billions of “advertising” dollars poured into forcing the agenda of statism, CRT/SEL/DEI, transgenderism and climate alarmism on institutional schools, will need to pour in their own billions of dollars and stronger counter-messages – if they ever hope to displace the opposition from that industry. Failing that, the best option is to shrink the opposition’s audience, by withdrawing kids to home- and micro-schools, if possible. Withdrawal is an option for individual families to exercise, whilst allocation of billions for messaging is obviously a decision in aggregate. The optimal solution will involve a combination of the two. All I know for sure is that parents howling at school administrators during open mic night, is a losing proposition in the long run. It is high time to remove kindling from the bonfire consuming our society!

Originally published on February 26th, 2023.