"Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing" (PDF)

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Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing | Setting the Stage
Government agencies, public health professionals, and consumer groups have
become increasingly concerned over the role of advertising in promoting “high-calorie,
low-nutrient” products to young people. 9 In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, under a Congressional mandate, commissioned the Institute of Medicine to
conduct a comprehensive examination of the role of marketing in children’s food consumption.
Based on an analysis of hundreds of studies, the 2005 report, Food Marketing
to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity?, found that “among many factors, food and
beverage marketing influences the preferences and purchase requests of children, influences
consumption at least in the short term, and is a likely contributor to less healthful
diets, and may contribute to negative diet-related health outcomes and risks among children
and youth.” 10 The study’s recommendations included a strong warning to the food
industry to change its advertising practices. “If voluntary efforts related to advertising during
children’s television programming are not successful in shifting the emphasis away
from high-calorie and low-nutrient foods and beverages to the advertising of healthful
foods and beverages,” the report said, “Congress should enact legislation mandating the
shift on both broadcast and cable television.” 11
Further government inquiries, public hearings, and press coverage have continued
to focus attention on this issue. The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services held a series of workshops with industry and
consumer groups, issuing a report in 2006 that urged food and beverage companies to
engage in more responsible production, packaging, and marketing practices, including
developing products that are “lower in calories, more nutritious, more appealing to children,
and more convenient to prepare and eat.” 12 In February 2007, the Federal
Communications Commission announced the establishment of a Task Force on Media &
Childhood Obesity, comprising food and ad industry representatives, consumer groups,
and health experts. The goal of the Task Force is to “build consensus regarding voluntary
steps and goals that the public and private sectors can take to combat childhood obesity.”
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Last year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the Campaign
for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) announced their intent to file a suit against both
the Kellogg Company and Viacom, the corporate owner of Nickelodeon. The announcement
charged the companies with “directly harming kids’ health” because “the overwhelming
majority of food products they market to children are high in sugar, saturated
and trans fat, or salt, or almost devoid of nutrients.” The groups said they would “ask a
Massachusetts court to enjoin the companies from marketing junk foods to audiences
where 15 percent or more of the audience is under age eight, and to cease marketing
junk foods through websites, toy giveaways, contests, and other techniques aimed at that
age group.” 14