• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 3, 2012

My six-year-old was hit with a Scooter Store commercial during Qubo's running of "Maisy.

"What's Medicare?" she asked me.

It's enough that my daughter's father can understand the disconnect between some  commercials and the content they play in, but young people are just perplexed.  Well, I guess as a parent I can explain some of this: These scooters are for those older or disabled Americans who need to get around.

Interestingly, for a kids’ educational channel, this was seemingly the only paid commercial during “Maisy." There were also promos for "Mighty Machines" and "Sammy's Story Shop." Right after the episode, there was a commercial for Pawggles, furry pets that you can wear like slippers. 

It's 2012 -- and guess what? Many commercials on TV programs still don’t make sense -- though I'm guessing there are fewer of this kind out there. Surely, flipping around the big arena of cable networks one can find other examples. And yes, perhaps, just plain old mistakes are made. Local TV stations and cable system commercials can complicate the process.

Young-skewing channels like Nickelodeon and others talk about the "co-viewing" of kids and mothers. But I'm sure they aren't touting co-viewing of kids and their grandmothers or grandfathers. Nickelodeon’s aim here is to expand its offerings to non-kids’ advertisers -- which is why you have seen more family auto van ads or family vacation commercials attached to shows for many years.

All this became more important as food commercials for kids have significantly slowed down because of health concerns. Toy commercials also aren't as plentiful; the same trend possibly also applies to electronic toy messaging and even home videos and theatrical family/kid films.

On its website, Qubo says it “is committed to not air national advertising that features unhealthy food and beverage choices, and has adopted stringent advertising guidelines aimed at improving children's health and reducing the rates of childhood obesity."

Qubo airs programming blocks on NBC Saturday mornings, on ION Television Wednesday to Friday mornings,, and on Telemundo weekend mornings. Qubo is joint venture of ION Media Networks, NBCUniversal, Nelvana, Scholastic Corporation, and Classic Media.

My wife says that, for many, the whole effort of having kids watch TV is still akin to a cheap baby sitter service. The better move, of course, is to put kids -- especially f young kids -- in front of more educational-style TV on PBS, Nick Jr., Disney Jr., and, yes, Qubo.

Canoe Ventures would probably say that getting the right commercials to the right viewers is one area it would like to see future efforts work better.

So it comes down to this: For my daughter, I can't understand why she didn't fast-forward through the Scooter Store commercial -- an activity she occasionally does.

When I asked her about this, she said:, "I loved it and I wanted to ride it." 

Marketing for the future, I guess.