Food advertising is often aimed at children and teens.
The objective of marketing and advertising is to build awareness of products and services to drive sales. Food marketing researcher Virginia Jones Noland observed in an article hosted on Faqs.org that marketing strategies directly affect food purchasing and eating habits. For example, research has shown that consumers do not make the link between food and health without marketing campaigns. Kids, teens and adults are also targeted with ads that are often about low-nutrient foods. This can have harmful health consequences, such as heart disease and obesity.
Marketing and Advertising Strategies
Ads to promote a healthy diet, including consumption of fruit juices and milk, are often part of government and private sector advertising campaigns. However, not all health marketing campaigns are based on fact. Noland cites a 2000 case where "Got Milk?" ads were found to have inaccurately linked improved performance in sports with milk consumption. Marketing campaigns are often directed at kids because they influence their parents' spending. Using trendy music, social media and other tools, these ads often promote snacks and other meals with low nutritional value. Noland also cites deceptive advertising strategies designed to influence buying decisions -- for example, labeling foods "light" or "low-fat" to convince consumers that food with relatively less fat content is also healthy, which may not always be the case.
Fast Food Marketing
The fast food industry spent more than $4.2 billion in 2009 on advertising, according to Fast Food FACTS, an informational website developed by Yale University health researchers. Fast food companies start their marketing efforts with the young -- for example, McDonald's online marketing targets two-year old kids at Ronald.com. This strategy appears to be working because more than 80 percent of parents reported taking their kids to a fast food restaurant at least once a week. The Yale researchers observed that the fast food industry must change its marketing practices to prevent more children from developing bad eating habits and damaging their health.
Curbing Advertising to Children
In January 2011, Reuters reported that the World Health Organization had called on governments to work with the food industry to restrict low-nutrient food advertising to children to tackle an epidemic of obesity and other diseases, especially in poorer nations. The American Heart Association sees no justification for marketing and advertising these foods to children. It believes Congress should restore regulatory authority over food and beverage marketing to promote healthy eating among children. A 2009 Yale University study found that food advertising triggers automatic eating, regardless of hunger, and contributes to obesity. Reducing marketing and advertising of unhealthy food to children is, therefore, an important public policy issue.
Impact on Adults
Adults are not immune to the impact of television advertising. The 2009 Yale study also found that adults exposed to unhealthy food ads ate significantly more than those who saw nutritional food ads. However, some of the marketing can be benign. For example, "New York Times" writer Stuart Elliott reported in a May 2010 article that Kraft had resumed promoting its famed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner as a tasty meal for adults. Economic weakness means less dining out, which offers an opportunity for food companies to push their prepackaged and ready-to-eat food products.
Tags: food industry, more than, 2009 Yale, eating habits, fast food