The Girl Scouts are old school. And they’d like to keep it that way. In a day and age where kids of all ages are exceedingly tech savvy, the Girls Scouts of America does not approve of their troops utilizing technology to get ahead in the competitive world of cookie sales.
Eight-year-old Wild Freeborn (now that’s a name!) enlisted the aid of her web designer dad and posted a You Tube video to promote sales of her cookies to the general public of her home town of Asheville, North Carolina. Her goal was to sell 12,000 boxes so she could send her and her entire troop to Girl Scout summer camp.
After generating about 700 orders through this marketing strategy, the officials at Girl Scouts HQ asked that the ‘ad’ be taken down citing that it was a violation of their policies. There is a rule saying that a Girl Scout cannot directly sell via the internet but Wild and her dad did not think they were breaking any rules since they weren’t directly selling the cookies but just promoting the sale of them.
In response to the situation on the Today Show, Denise Pesich,a spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts, said in regards to not utilizing the net, “There are good reasons for that,” she explained. “We want to make sure that whatever the girl is doing is integrated into the program that she’s studying, we want to make sure we are in the development stages of a technological platform that will integrate it and be fair and equitable for all girls. But more importantly, it’s girl safety at its core.” Matt Lauer asked, “Is it less safe to sell online than to go door to door in some communities?”
Her reply was that “When we sell door to door we always have adults accompanying girls,” she replied. “In this case, we have a very concerned father overseeing the process, and we know she’s relatively safe. But not in all cases is that true.”
Even though her marketing scheme was cut short, Wild is optimistic that she’ll be able to reach that 12,000 mark. And the Today show is willing to do their part with Matt Lauer saying that the crew would surely buy some boxes.
It’s a shame that the Girl Scouts aren’t embracing this tech savvy and very contemporary avenue of entrepreneurship. Do you think the Girl Scouts should have allowed this type of promotion or should cookie sales be strictly ‘off line’.
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