3631 Marketing Poor Health to Kids
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Dynamic Chiropractic – February 12, 2009, Vol. 27, Issue 04

Marketing Poor Health to Kids

By Editorial Staff

According to a recent report released by the Federal Trade Commission, advertising food products to children (an estimated $1.6 billion business annually) is all about integrated ad campaigns that combine traditional media, such as television, with packaging, in-store advertising, sweepstakes and the Internet.

The executive summary of the report provided one example of this "cross-promotional" marketing:

"Cross-promotions were widespread in 2006, tying foods and beverages in all of the covered categories to about 80 movies, television shows, and animated characters that appeal primarily to youth. Superman Returns and Pirates of the Caribbean were prominent that year - promoting QSR [quick-service restaurants] children's meals, frozen waffles, fruit and fruit snacks, breakfast cereals, popcorn, lunch kits, candy, carbonated and non-carbonated drinks, pasta, snack chips, and milk. Superman and the Pirates characters appeared in ads on television, in movie theaters, on the Internet, and on packaging and in-store displays. Companies created special limited-edition snacks, cereals, frozen waffles and candies based on the movies. Children or adolescents could go online to play "advergames' related to the characters and their stories and to enter contests or sweepstakes using special codes obtained from food packages or beverage containers. Prizes ranged from video games to trips to Disney parks to a $1,000,000 reward for the "capture' of Superman villain, Lex Luthor. Related premiums included skull-shaped bowls, bandanas, strobe light key chains, movie posters, outdoor flying toys, Superman action figures, activity books, and digital downloads."

The biggest category of marketing expenditure for the 44 companies surveyed, $492 million, was carbonated-drink advertising. By comparison, the Dairy Association's "Got Milk?" ads cost approximately $67 million in 2006. In terms of where the money is spent, the report noted, "Television advertising still dominates the landscape of marketing techniques used to promote foods and beverages to youth; companies reported spending $745 million, or 46% of all reported youth marketing expenditures, on this medium. More than 50% of the television advertising was directed to children under 12, with breakfast cereals and restaurant food accounting for more than half of that advertising. Carbonated beverages and restaurant food dominated adolescent-directed television advertising. All told, traditional "measured media' (television, radio, and print) accounted for $853 million, or 53% of the reported youth-directed marketing expenditures.

The report recommends various steps be taken to improve this situation, including mandating "meaningful, nutrition-based standards for marketing products" to children under age 12; improving the nutritional profiles of products marketed to children; stopping in-school promotion of products that fall below accepted nutritional standards; and urging media and entertainment companies to restrict character licensing to healthier foods/beverages marketed to children. To learn more, visit www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/07/foodmkting/shtm.

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Dynamic Chiropractic editorial staff members research, investigate and write articles for the publication on an ongoing basis. To contact the Editorial Department or submit an article of your own for consideration, email .

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