Mercer Island High School announced this week that the Jack Daniel Distillery will be the exclusive sponsor of this year’s homecoming festivities. In return for various advertising and branding rights, the company has agreed to underwrite all of the costs of what will now be called “Jack Daniel’s Presents Mercer Island High School Spirit Week,” from decorating the gym with posters and tissue paper to the cost of mirrored disco balls and a big paper sign for the football team to burst through as they make their way onto the field.
“We’re very excited about this deal,” announced Jack Daniel’s Senior Vice President of Teen Marketing, Al Kaholich. “Our research shows that young people will remain loyal to their brand of whiskey well into their college years, and we think this gives us the opportunity to be the favored premium whiskey of the key 16-to-19 demographic.”
“With less than three weeks remaining until homecoming, we knew we needed help to pull off an awesome celebration,” said MIHS senior Faye Kai-Dee, chairperson of the Homecoming Planning Committee. “We’re so grateful that our new friends from Jack Daniel’s have promised to take care of everything.”
Not all community members support the new arrangement. “It is completely inappropriate for a public school to enter into a commercial sponsorship arrangement of this nature,” said Carrie Nation, parent of a MIHS sophomore and president of Moms Against Deregulating Consumption Of Whiskey. “Also, the alcohol in these beverages interferes with the Xanax and Zoloft that our kids need to take just to get through the day.”
Jack Daniel officials were quick to respond to such concerns. “I want to assure the Mercer Island community that there is nothing we take more seriously than our social responsibility. During homecoming, we will be rigorously checking student IDs at all of the refreshing Jack-and-Cola stands set up throughout the MIHS campus,” noted Kaholich. “In addition, we will deploy an aggressive campaign to discourage underage drinking, featuring time-tested slogans like, ‘Jack Daniel’s: So much fun, if you’re 21,’ and ‘Jack Daniel’s: It’s oh-so-smooth going down, unless you’re not old enough to handle it.'”
MIHS officials defend the arrangement by noting that corporate sponsorship is on the rise throughout the Washington State as a way to address endemic funding shortfalls in public schools. They point to the recent agreement between R.J. Reynolds and the Newport School District, resulting in the newly renamed “Newport Gold High School” and the associated slogan, “Newport Gold: The smokes that make you look cool.”