To: Toys “R” Us CEO Antonio Urcelay

Tell Toys R US to End its Anti-Education, Anti-Environment Ad Campaign

Your television commercials send an irresponsible message that cheap plastic toys are of greater value than education, science, and the environment. Stop running the ads that show school kids being diverted from a nature field trip to a Toys R Us shopping spree.

Why is this important?

Nature is lame. Plastic toys are better than science and environmental education.

That’s the message conveyed by the new Toys “R” Us commercial about the “best field trip” kids could “wish for.”

The ad depicts bored, yawning kids on a school bus labeled “Meet the Trees Foundation” as they begin a nature-oriented field trip.

The kids are then showered with confetti as they jump for joy at the guide’s announcement that they’re actually taking a trip to Toys “R” Us — where the fun is, according to the ad.

Children are already constantly bombarded with commercial messages suggesting that fun and childhood go hand in hand with an endless supply of plastic toys and violent video games.

But we can’t recall an ad that so mocked education and nature in order to promote material consumption.

The marketing campaign not only focuses children in the wrong direction, it burdens parents by undermining their efforts to make their children enthusiastic about school activities.

The commercial is irresponsible and contrary to American values.