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Introduction
As the epidemic of food related diseases including but not limiting to certain types of cancers, diabetes, heart ailment and obesity has been on a rise several global organizations researched and collected data to uncover the actual facts behind this severe health concern. Organizations like WHO, considered marketing or promoting unhealthy food products to children as one of the key areas that required serious regulations in order to promote healthy life styles.
Marketing is a general term that might involve various strategies that are not as prominent as others, for the sake of this research the paper will focus on some specific ways of marketing of food products directly and indirectly. These strategies will include television advertisements, internet/social media advertisings, in-school sponsored events or promotions, endorsements through cartoon/fictional or non-fictional young celebrity poplar among children and adolescents.
Food businesses consider children as the most promising consumer as the chances of brand loyalty and imposed spending are more as compared to older age bracket. In US, according to stats spending in food industry specifically in food items for children is about $180 to $200 billion per year. A majority of the food products directly or indirectly marketed to children contain high fat, sugar, sodium and do not meet the nutritional requirements for that age group. However, these are promoted as healthy choices for children.
Families globally have been affected by the extensive promotion of high sugar and fat food products specifically targeted towards children and the rising statistics of obesity, diabetes and other diseases related to physiological and metabolism show the widespread consequences. The marketing of all such food items if not prohibited completely, it should be regulated and more importantly the targeted audience should be warned of the over utilization.
This paper will research into the extent of advertising by the food industry targeted towards children, the social pressure on parents and often children due to marketing of these products and the short term as well as long term consequences on the children’s health and wellbeing. The paper will include recommendations based on the research to control the epidemic effect of utilization of unhealthy food and the role of advertising in promoting unhealthy life style affecting not only the physical health but also instating psychological problems among children. The effects are long term and often persist throughout the adult life.
Research Methodology
In order to make stance on the above issue and to completely understand the extent of marketing and promotion of unhealthy food products that has affected the general health and nutrition of population, a literature review including prior research papers, documentaries, cases and statistics related to the topic will be conducted. The qualitative research approach will assist in understanding the factors, industry insights and opinions regarding the issue. The paper will make recommendations and possible steps to if not eradicate at least limit the negative effects of marketing to underage consumer.
Advertising Industry & Position of Food Industry
Food industry has been a major sector in the advertising world. The total advertising spending of the US food and beverage industry has been $136,526,5K, while that of the US confectionary and snack industry has been $197,606,8K. The most prominent companies within the sector have been McDonald with a brand value of $85,706m, CocaCola with brand value of $70,042m and Budlight with a value of $12,905m. Kraft foods is the leading advertiser in the US food industry with a spending of $362.7m while Hershey’s spends $505m worldwide as its advertising budget only.
Advertising is considered as a very important operation for every company, especially the consumer product or service companies. Today as technology as transformed all other business processes, advertising has also came a long way from just being a medium to create awareness. Modern advertising focuses on forcing its audience in sublimely to use the product/service. Most companies have created that “need” for using the product by showing the various ways a certain product will improve the consumer’s personality or situation.
Every advertisement that we come across today is a result of vigorous research related to the audience, the experts studied what will attract the people of certain demographic, age or religion and use those tactics and facts to create marketing contents specifically for that consumer.
Marketing to underage consumer
The lowering quality of children’s diet and the widespread trend of childhood obesity leading towards diabetes and psychological problems in children is considered a global issue. The media influenced eating habits developed at this age has long term impact on their health and growth. Though this is a complex problem and no single factor is responsible to solve the situation however media can play a more responsible role in preventing and limiting these negative impacts to a certain extent.
Food industry spends millions of dollars every year to advertise their products mostly unsuitable for the children due to high sugar, sodium and fat contents. Children are bombarded by these persuasive messages through television, internet, school and grocery stores. According to Statista,on average children in US see 253 ads of McDonald in an year while Subway is next with about 81 ads per child per year.
Additionally, according to a research published in the book “buy, buy baby” half of all the advertisements that come on air is US are related to candies, unhealthy snacks, sugary cereals(marketed as nutritious) and fast food. The direct impact of this ad trend can be seen as only in US$6million are spent on buying these food products aimed at children. An average American children at the time of graduating from school has spent more time watching TV than in class, and on average they see 2000 food commercials during this time that suggests the consistent strategy of food companies to target and, market to these underage consumers.
Why market to children?
The question arises here why do food industry targets the children and markets to them considering the fact that they are not independent or have money to spend.
It is a known trait that as people grow there are some childhood preferences or likes that they adhere to even when they grow up. In USA an experiment was conducted over a group of people in 1944 and then repeated in 1964 to study their brand affiliations. The research showed that at least 23%people still had the same favorite products as in their childhood.
When it comes to food, people often have emotional bonds with certain food or flavor as they associate it with their childhood, thus the bonding is hard to break. This further suggests that the core reason that companies now target children as their chief consumer is to develop a lifetime customer. Most food companies market their products by showing happy, healthy and close families as this is the most lucrative way to get a child’s attention. These children are more inclined towards the graphics and the visuals of the ad rather than the actual product. Additionally, children do not understand the actual intent of the advertisements or promotions and thus have no idea of the influence that these ads have on them. As part of a research kids of age 6 and above were asked about why ads are played on TV and a majority responded that they don’t know, while others thought it to be there to give a break to the program or give awareness of the product.
According to a report published in The Economist in 2005 children in age group of 6 to 14 years influenced about half of the household spending in US that’s roughly about $700 billion USD every year. This provides a strong reason for the food industry to invest in attracting the underage consumer. Marketers have been using children’s pester power or their ability to force their parents into buying something not really important. The excessive exposure to commercials and branding targeted towards these children influences their thinking pattern and redefines the consumer buying trends too.
Marketing Strategies in Food Industry (Aimed at children)
There are several ways food and beverage companies have been promoting their businesses. Some methods are direct such as commercials and printed ads, promotional camps, others are indirect such as sponsorships, branding and endorsements.
There are certain specific ways children spend or influence the spending, thus the companies target the children at these touch points:
Primary Market: The stuff kids usually buy for themselves.
Influence Market: The more costly stuff that the kids force their parents or elders to buy for them.
Future Market: Developing a loyal client at the age of 6-14 years has a high probability of life time loyalty with the brand.
While TV commercials and print ads target their audience directly, Internet has played an important role in bringing the target market even closer to the marketer often without even the consent of the consumer. Various digital channels, social networks and mobile apps/games are designed to collect consumer data and online behavior to reach them in a personalized way.
Brand endorsements is also a popular way of leading brands to attract the right audience, for example use of most favorite cartoon characters on the boxes of sugary cereals, candies and other sugary products attracts the children even more towards these products even though they might not actually like consuming that product. TV channels for children air about 90% of such food product commercials directly aimed at children often during the peak show times, most popular shows and with the same fictional or non-fictional characters to gain even more attention of the children. Food brands have been leveraging this vulnerable market through frequent, program length ads, placing these products across stores where kids can easily locate them, offering toy giveaways with the food items and offering popular cartoon character merchandising and branding showing openly who their target consumer is.
Stereotyping & advertisement
As discussed, the researched data based advertising have not only enabled the companies to actually pinpoint their target market’s likes and dislikes but it has also overwhelmed the audience with stereotypes for gender, physical appearance, social status and ethnicity.
The stereotyping in food industry subconsciously dictates the viewer how that certain product will enable him to look/act like the model in the advertisement. According to industry experts the gender stereotyping is most commonly projected by food industry, a detailed experiment conducted by University of Manitoba studied about 100 people, their opinion and preferences related to food. The experiment showed that most people considered healthier foods like salads to be feminine while meaty and fried food to be masculine.
The experiment clearly showed that even the mature audience subconsciously is influenced by the media stereotyping and the way a certain product is marketed.
Psychological & Physiological Effects Of Marketing on Children
Childhood obesity, unhealthy eating preferences and eating disorders are quite common and prominent side effects of extensive exposure of children towards unhealthy food marketing. In addition to these issues there are several physiological and psychological issues pertaining to children’s behavior that are a result of growing consumerism among children. Children are prone to like the advertisements that bounds their product with something the children adore and thus an emotional bond is developed between the product and child. The child will either force parents to buy that product or would feel and anxious for not being able to get that product. Most ads targeted to children show families, friends, pets and most popular characters from kids movies/cartoons, the children are unable to understand the persuasive nature of these ads in fact all they relate to is that happy time showed in the ad and wants the same for them. The average American child up to the age of 14 years views about 40,000 commercials and makes about 3000 purchase requests to their parents, that obviously not all can be fulfilled. The frequency of these ad campaigns have injected materialism among the children. The groundbreaking book” born to buy” discusses this issue as the next generation highly influenced by the media, stereotyping, unhealthy and unrealistic body portrayals, social norms and materialistic needs is developing a narcissist and aggressive attitude as they believe not having a certain object makes them inferior and thus would do anything to get that.
According to a study published In “The Telegraph” that observed the media driven consumerism among children of 10-13 years old suggested that the exposure of children to too much media and the scripted portrayals of celebrity lifestyles is infusing the children’s ability to relate to their families and circumstances. The persuasive nature of these marketing campaigns that shows how high profile celebrities are using these products and have reached this stage in their lives due to that endorsed product forces those children to try the same. The failing to achieve that level infuses depression, anxiety and social withdrawals.
Recommendations
Food industry is an important sector in the country GDP anywhere in world and thus it is highly improbable to stop these companies from marketing or advertising their products. Companies sell what their market wants and sometimes these wants or needs are also seeded by the same companies. The current health and psychological effects of over exposure to marketing for underage consumer who cannot comprehend the sublime messages of an ad campaign, cannot be resolved by eliminating the marketing or advertisement only. In fact this needs to be a holistic approach. The media industry and especially the channels for children should be highly regulated and should follow the criteria of what to show and how much to show strictly. The food products for children that are not really healthy should be projected in the same way and should contain warning of over consumption, similar to the way tobacco is marketed. Parents, guardian and schools need to counsel children what marketing means and how advertisements are designed to capture their attention and might not be close to truth. Program length advertising, endorsements to attract children and branded merchandising should be limited. The marketing content developers also need to develop the content considering the long term effects on the children. The timing and length of ads during peak hours of cartoon channels should be regulated and limited and the same time frames could be used to educate children about health eating habits and building positive attitudes.
References
Ajay Jose, D. K. (2014). Effectiveness of Cartoon Character’s in Creating Brand Preferences Among kids. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance and Marketing.
American Stroke Association. (2015). Unhealthy and Unregulated Food Advertising and Marketing to Children. American Stroke Association.
BENDIX, A. (2015). Burgers Are For Boys and Salads Are For Girls. CityLab.
Commercialized Children. (2015, july). Retrieved from Just Thinking: http://anoddmomentarythought.blogspot.com/2015/07/commercialized-children.html
Keller, M. (2012). Advertising and Consumerism in the Food Industry. Johnson & Wales University.
Radunovic, L. (2014, July). Kids And Advertising: (Ab)using The Most Vulnerable Target Group. Retrieved from http://domain.me/kids-and-advertising/: http://domain.me/kids-and-advertising/
Statista. (n.d.). Facts on food advertising. Retrieved from Statista: http://www.statista.com/topics/2223/food-advertising/
Telegraph. (2009). Too much television can make children 'mentally ill'. Telegraph.
