Sesame Street characters in advertising

The relationship between Sesame Street and advertising, and particularly the use of its characters to sell products, has changed over the years, but often involved wariness, due to both its presence on public television and its target audience of children. A major element of the TV show involved borrowing the methods of television advertising, jingles and short segments (often using animation) to promote a concept. Instead of a product, the concept and sponsors were letters and numbers. This led to the use of the terminology for the animated inserts, such as "The J Commercial" (and many of the earliest ones used the "brought to you by" sponsorship phrasing, also used at the end of each episode).

Children's Television Workshop founder Joan Ganz Cooney commented on the effectiveness of the approach but also voiced concerns about the ways children respond to advertising, and how it targeted them.

“ I further suggested we use commercials to teach letters and numbers. Hearing every child in America singing beer commercials certainly suggested to me that television was teaching willy-nilly. Kids are just like little sponges. They pick up everything.”

Sesame Street also debuted the same year as a 1969 FCC ruling preventing characters on children's programming from being used in advertising (leading to the cancellation of ABC's Linus the Lionhearted, which starred Post cereal mascots who did their own commercials). While this ruling was relaxed in the 1980s (allowing Transformers and other toy-selling shows to flourish), at the time it led to closer scrutiny of children's television.

The use of the Muppets added another complication, as Jim Henson had been using the characters in advertising for over a decade. These concerns coincided when the special Hey Cinderella! debuted over a commercial network in 1970, with Kermit the Frog as a principal character and appearing in integrated advertising tags. This prompted outrage from The New York Times critic Jack Gould, unaware of Kermit's prior commercials, who directly blamed Sesame Street:

“Apparently the Children's Television Workshop, producer of "Sesame Street," is not adverse to cashing in when success strikes. What ever television may be called, public or commercial, sooner or later the compromises start if the ratings are right. "Sesame Street" last night lost a little of its luster as Kermit broke the faith and became one more pitchman. ”

Jim Henson sent a letter in response, clarifying his involvement and history, as well as that of Sesame Street.

“For the past ten or twelve years, approximately half my income has been derived from producing Muppet commercials. These have most often been for adult products, as most of my work has historically been adult. However, since the advent of Sesame Street, and my own interest and concern for children's television (I am an enthusiastic member of Action for Children's Television), I have become a great deal more selective, and have turned down many lucrative offers that seemed to be trying to capitalize on Sesame Street.”
—Jim Henson (1970)

To avoid further conflict of interest, Kermit was dropped from the show's second season which premiered in the fall, but would return for the third season. The incident did highlight the pitfalls of Sesame Street characters, even those who predated the show, appearing in commercials. For the rest of the 1970s, any outside appearances by the street Muppets were limited to public service announcements, such as Cookie Monster promoting a balanced meal in a 1974 spot for The Ad Council.

As of 1986 — by which time the annual production costs were $9 million for 130 episodes — licensing the Sesame Street characters for merchandise accounted for two-thirds of the show's revenue. In response to criticism over the products, Cooney compared CTW's licensing with commercial television's tendency to exploit its viewers with entire shows dedicated to advertising a tie-in toy line (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had premiered three years prior). Cooney affirmed that Sesame Street products derive from the show and asserted the company's standards by quipping, "We will not do a Big Bird submachine gun."

Outside of the television show, CTW used similar discretion in their approach to Sesame Street Magazine. In a 1990 article for The New York Times about how the periodical was able to survive without paid sponsorship, publisher Nina B. Link commented, "We believe that children under the age of 6 shouldn't be exposed to advertising." The article went on to note that its companion Parents' Guide — originally an insert, then spun off as a separate publication — did print ads, but that it excluded categories deemed sexist or too violent (like toy guns) even for its adult readers.

Sesame Street Muppets in commercials

Commercial advertising for Sesame Street products and services began appearing as soon as those products became available to the public. In most cases, footage or photographs of the products themselves were used in promotion. Eventually, the Sesame Street characters would begin appearing in some of these ads, sometimes in animated form, as well as the Muppets themselves. In some cases, the Muppets are not advertising their own merchandise, but serve as hired talent to advertise products for other companies.

	American Express (c. 1980-1984) Big Bird joins Joan Ganz Cooney for a walk down Sesame Street in a commercial selling American Express credit cards.
	Coronet (1985) Stock footage from Follow That Bird is used to sell paper towels and promote the company's sweepstakes event.
	Xerox (1990s) Elmo, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and Zoe dance around to The Jackson 5's "ABC" in a Japanese commercial selling computer printers.
	The California Milk Processor Board (1997) Cookie Monster poses in a widely publicized print ad for the "Got Milk?" campaign that appeared in magazines and billboards.
	Kmart (1997-2000) Ernie, Rosita, Big Bird, and Elmo are joined by Rosie O'Donnell and Penny Marshall to promote a line of Sesame Street clothing sold exclusively at Kmart stores.
	Ford (1998) In a commercial that doubled as a PSA, Big Bird stresses the importance of wearing seat belts and placing children in the back seat of Ford Windstar vehicles.
	Tyco (1998) (YouTube) Elmo, Herry Monster, and a Honker struggle through a short in which bean bag plush dolls of themselves and their Sesame Street friends are introduced as merchandise to be collected. See more: Tyco commercials
	T-Mobile (2000) Bert and Ernie discuss pre-paid T-Mobile service cards in two German commercials.
	Fisher-Price (2000) Oscar appears in a commercial for Elmo's Bubble Tunes.
	Fisher-Price (2001) (YouTube) Telly appears with Zoe to provide very brief commentary for a commercial selling the Jump & Learn Elmo toy.
	NBA (2003) The Count, Big Bird, Elmo, Oscar, Super Grover, Zoe appear in a commercial for the NBA's "1,000 Reasons Why I Love This Game" campaign.
	DION (2003) Big Bird and Elmo play "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" in a commercial for the Japanese internet service provider. They're joined by Cookie Monster in another ad where they take a taxi to a friend's house.
	Yamazaki (2005) Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster starred in a bread commercial for the Japanese chain of convenience stores.
	NFL (2011) A very brief clip from a Sesame Street sketch with Ernie and some sheep appeared in a commercial first shown during the 2011 Super Bowl. The clip was digitally altered to include St. Louis Rams football caps on the sheep and a sign on Ernie's door.
	Australian Red Cross Blood Service (2015)
	AT&T (2016) Big Bird dines at a street side cafe in a commercial featuring a number of pop culture characters selling data services provided by AT&T's network.
	Apple Computers (2016) Cookie Monster utilizes Siri while baking cookies in an iPhone 6s commercial.
	Federópticos (2016) Grover and Mr. Johnson sell eyeglasses for the South American company.
	IBM (2016-2018) Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster, Abby Cadabby, and Big Bird quiz IBM's A.I. in a commercial for its Watson services.
	Chrysler (2017-2018) The Sesame Street Muppets feature in four commercials for the Chrysler Pacifica minivan.
	Lactaid (2019) Cookie Monster sells milk alternative products with Sutton Foster.
	Farmers Insurance Group (2019) J. K. Simmons plays his Nathaniel Burke character who sells Farmers Insurance in a series of commercials with the Sesame Street Muppets.
	Squarespace (2019) Oscar the Grouch stars in an ad campaign consisting of still photography and videos that tell the story of his reluctance to use Squarespace's services to manage the online presence of his junk collection.
	AT&T (2020) On Tracy Morgan's command, Cookie Monster appears on screen thanks to AT&T's voice-activated TV remote.
	DoorDash (2021) The Sesame Street Muppets appear in a series of commercials for the food delivery service. DoorDash pledges (and delivers) to donate $1,000,000 in profits to Sesame Workshop.
	NerdWallet (2023) Count von Count appeared in a series of commercials for the personal finance company.
	United Airlines (2023) Oscar the Grouch appeared as the company's new "Chief Trash Officer" in a series of commercials to promote the company's use of sustainable aviation fuel.
	Califia Farms (2023) Cookie Monster appears in a commercial for almond milk.
	Target (2024) Cookie Monster appears in an ad for Target Circle, Target's loyalty program.

See also

• PBS Interstitials
• Tyco commercials
• Category:Sesame Street Food Products
• Category:Public Service Announcements