ANALYSIS OF MARKETING APPROACH
ANALYSIS OF MARKETING APPROACH
The report of the Economist (2012) has revealed that food and drinks companies, such as Nestle have been identified as the cause of the rising obesity rate all over the world. Nestle is the manufacturer of food products such as cereals, chocolate milk, infant formula, chocolates, candies, ice cream and yogurt. On the business side, Nestle has the responsibility to its shareholders to earn profit so it makes use of radical marketing strategies in order to sell its products globally to increase its sales. However, these sales techniques have caused an alarm to majority of health advocates because there are many food companies who continuously produce unhealthy products for being profit motivated, but in reality, will only entice the consumers to gain weight (The Economist, 2012). Most of these food products are loaded with high sugar, salt and content which can only harm the body. In fact, Nestle has promoted one of its drink products called the Boost Kids Essentials by marketing the product’s ability to fights colds among children due to its positive health effects on children. However, FTC has declared that the marketing advertisement of the company as deceptive to its consumers when they claimed that the products has added nutrients to boost the immune system of children. Nestle agreed to cease and desist from manufacturing of such product (Halbert & Ingulli, 2011, p. 279).
In the case of Nestle, the targeted market is children below 6 years to 12 years old so they use program personalities, live and animated to advertise its products and market directly to children (Consumers International, 2008). One of their popular packaged food products are cereals such as “Koko Krunch” by giving free samples and promotional offers in schools. However, there is need to study the nutritional profile of the cereal product in order to help the children to achieve a healthy balanced diet by setting clear limitations on the sugar, salt and fat content of the product (Consumers International, 2008). The use cartoons in the products and having popular celebrity endorsers in Nestles’ advertisements has increased the sales of their packaged food products.
In the case of cigarettes, the marketing approach being used by companies is to devise cigarettes that has low tar or called the filtered cigarettes. This marketing strategy is meant to established the concept that smoking will become safer through the use and development of less hazardous substitute which can result to “harm reduction to the consumers”(Labarthe, 2011). One of the issues of this marketing approach is unfair targeting of filtered cigarettes to teenagers through advertisements by exposing them to view that consumption of filtered cigarettes is a positive symbol and will encourage them to smoke. The filtered cigarettes have made the consumers believe that the filtration process eliminates the nicotine. But in reality, regardless of the reduced amount on nicotine in filtered cigarettes, it can still be the cause of lung cancer. In fact, women’s magazines were discouraged by U.S. Congress to stop accepting tobacco advertisements because most of the magazine readers belong to the population of young women, and their health will be threatened if magazines continue to feature print advertisements of low-tar cigarettes or filtered cigarettes. It can be concluded that the marketing approach of unhealthy food products and filtered cigarettes are the same because both are motivated by profit. The positive advertisements shown by Nestle and other cigarette companies in media and print ads have encouraged the consumers to patronize their products due to deceptive advertising. In the case of Nestle, its breakfast cereals for children are high in sugar such as Koko Krunch, which has 37.9g of sugar per 100grams and Honey Stars which contains 37.4g of sugar per 100grams, which may go beyond the normal sugar intake of children (Consumers International, 2008).
References
Consumers International. (2008). The Junk Food Trap. Web. April 19, 2013, Retrieved from
http://www.consumersinternational.org/media/540310/junk_food_trap.pdf.
Halbert, T., & Ingulli, E. (2011). Law and Ethics in the Business Environment. California:
Cengage.
Labarthe, D. R. (2011). Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases, 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
The Economist. (2012). Food for Thought. Web. April 19, 2013, Retrieved from
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21568064-food-companies-play-ambivalent-part-fight-against-flab-food-thought.
