Companies Committed to Kids (formerly known as Concerned Children's Advertisers) was a Canadian non-profit organization which produced and aired public service announcements aimed towards kids. Founded in 1990, it has produced over 30 public service announcements, covering topics such as drug abuse, conformity, healthy living, self-esteem, and bullying. Its members were private companies that market to children and families, including McDonald's, Disney, Mattel, Pepsico, Teletoon, Hasbro, Corus Entertainment, Hershey's, Kellogg's, Kraft, Loblaws, Nestlé, General Mills, Weston, Can West, CTV, ZenithOptimedia, and the Institute of Communication Agencies.
The organization and its campaigns were supported by various television networks, stations and specialty channels throughout Canada, as well as one border station in the United States (KVOS-TV). Most of their shorts can be viewed on their official YouTube channel
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On March 30th, 2017, the organization dissolved after nearly 20 years of running PSAs.
Tropes present in the CCK's ads include:
- Afraid of Needles: Invoked and justified in two ads:
- In "Syringe," a discarded syringe sucks up dirty water from the ground, implied later to be injected into someone.
- In "Labyrinth," a group of older kids yells to stop a group of younger kids from touching a discarded syringe on the sidewalk.
- Alliterative Name: The organization's name following their renaming in 2013.
- Body Horror: An ersatz version in "Brain," which features a brain made out of electrical wires. A pair of pliers, representing drugs, clips as many wires as it can at an increasingly rapid pace, until the whole thing is a smoking, short-circuited ruin.
- Descent into Addiction: "Rehab" depicts an extremely condensed tale of a drug addict's life, first as a Cheerful Child on vacation, later as a young man smoking up, and finally as his current self being visited at the clinic by his brother.
- Ding-Dong-Ditch Distraction: In Knock on Wood, a group of boys convinces one of the boys to do the Knock Knock Run variant, which is faded out at the end for the message to appear.Boy, it's not easy being one.
- Dramatic Spotlight: "Brain" and "Crack" use this to highlight their respective visual aids.
- Drugs Are Bad: 15 out of the 38 ads
- Extreme Close-Up: "Crack" begins with an XCU of a bag and a voiceover asking "Ever wondered what a bag of crack looks like?" Zoom out to reveal it's a body bag on a stretcher.
- Girls Have Cooties: The Chase encourages kids to stay fit lest they are caught by girls (with cooties) and kissed.
- Harsh Word Impact: In "Words Hurt", a trio of female bullies says some hurtful words at another female by calling her a "loser" and "geek". Several "ha" words are then thrown at the girl, causing her to feel overwhelmed and run off, with the word "get lost" being sent to chase and attack her.
- Heads or Tails?: Moe Funky encourages kids to "use their heads" when making important decisions instead of playing games. Flipping a coin, alongside with bottle spinning, Drawing Straws and Rock–Paper–Scissors are four of the games depicted.
- Huggy, Huggy Hippos: "House Hippo" shows a cute, tiny hippopotamus that is said to live in North American homes. That said, there's a tiny bit of the more realistic Angry, Angry Hippos trope in there, as the house hippo is said to defend its territory if provoked (which is shown by it roaring to scare away a cat), though it's also described as "timid" and looks too small to actually pose a threat to humans.
- Offstage Villainy: In "How Was Your Day?", in which a teacher explains to her son how she helped a student who confessed that his mother "smashes things and yells and hits him," none of which is shown.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: The What's Your Thing short teaches kids that everyone has their own special talent or ability. One of them is magic, with a boy performing the Saw a Woman in Half illusion on her sister. The sister calls for their mom, saying that her brother's cut her in half again.Sister: Mom! Mom! Aiden cut me in half again!
- Perverse Puppet: The drug dealer puppet in "Hip Choice" is cursed.
- Saw a Woman in Half: One of the abilities depicted in the What's Your Thing short is magic, depicted by a magician sawing his sister in half.
- Scare 'Em Straight: Their earliest ads tended to favor this approach.
- Straw Loser: Played with in "Loser." The main focus is on a group of kids making fun of a former friend for refusing to take drugs like they do. We see their former friend enjoying hobbies, talking to girls, and generally having his life together, prompting the question of who the losers in this scenario really are.
- Tone Shift: Their ads for very small children tend to be Lighter and Softer, while their ads for teens and preteens tend to be Darker and Edgier.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: "Mimic" is the only ad aimed at parents, warning them against modeling unhealthy habits for their children. The little girl in the ad is shown putting a lollipop stick in her mouth and then placing it in her teddy bear's mouth, evidently imitating something her mother does.
