"Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing" (PDF)

Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing | Setting the Stage
Industry Responses
mid this mounting public pressure, food manufacturers and media companies
have launched a flurry of high-profile initiatives, including campaigns to promote
health and fitness among children and changes in some of their marketing practices. 15 A
Many of these efforts have garnered support and approval from public health professionals
and federal regulators:
• In 2005, The Ad Council’s Coalition for Healthy Children—which includes more
than a dozen advertising organizations and food and beverage companies—
launched a campaign promoting pro-social messages to both children and
adults, to encourage physical activity, healthy food choice, portion control, and
good parental role modeling. 16
• That same year, Kraft Foods announced it would cease advertising some of its
most popular brands—including Kool-Aid, Oreo, Chips Ahoy, and Lunchables—to
children between the ages of 6 and 11 on television, in radio, and in print
media, shifting its product mix to more nutritious brands. 17
• In spring 2006, Nickelodeon launched a $30 million public service campaign, in
partnership with the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart
Association, entitled “Let’s Just Play Go Healthy Challenge.” The centerpiece of
the effort was a “five-month miniseries documenting the lives of four real kids’
struggles to get healthy,” the final episode of which instructed kids to “turn off
their television sets on September 30 th and go out and play.” 18
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