The Walt Disney Company is refunding parents who bought its Baby Einstein DVDs following a row with a campaign group over their disputed educational merits.
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a US-based advocacy group, is claiming victory after Disney said it would offer a full cash refund to anyone who bought one of the DVDs in the last five years.
The campaigners had already complained to the Federal Trade Commission in May 2006 about products from Disney’s Baby Einstein subsidiary. At the time, the corporate giant changed some of the wording on its products and Baby Einstein website.
But the row escalated and now Disney says it is offering a full refund to “leave it up to consumers” to decide whether its products offer “value”.
CCFC argues the move is a direct result of its pressure over “false and deceptive marketing of baby videos”.
“The refund offer is a wonderful victory for families and anyone who cares about children,” the group said on its website.
“Recent research shows that screen time is not educational for babies. Now parents who purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, mistakenly believing the videos would make their babies smarter, can recoup their money.”
Disney slammed the attack by “propaganda groups taking extreme positions that try to dictate what parents should do, say and buy”. It accused CCFC’s campaign director, psychologist Susan Linn, of twisting “a simple, customer satisfaction action into a false admission of guilt”. It also denied making claims Baby Einstein was educational.
“We strongly believe that, unlike Linn, our consumers find value in our product, and rather than continue to fight with her, we decided it to leave it up to those consumers. That is why we extended a refund policy that was already in place,” said a statement on Baby Einstein’s website.
