"Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing" (PDF)

Food marketers can
now target teens
through an explosion
of new digital
venues—including
social networking
platforms, peer-topeer
video, instant
messaging, interactive
games, and cell
phones—completely
bypassing any parental
oversight.
Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing | Creating a Healthy Media Environment for the 21st Century
clear, in a manner that will be easily understood by the intended audience, that it is an
advertisement.” 288 But these new rules are most likely to result in only minor alterations
of online children’s advertising, such as the addition of “sponsored by” in advergames
and other forms of branded entertainment. They have been so carefully and narrowly tailored
that it is doubtful whether they will affect most of the new marketing strategies documented
in this report. 289
One of the biggest weaknesses in the industry self-regulation programs is that
they apply only to advertising that is targeted exclusively to children 12 and under. This
approach is part of a tradition in U.S. regulation, dating back to the 1970s, when
research documented that young children were unable to understand the intentions of
others and were therefore vulnerable to advertising. 290 But we cannot address the nutritional
health problems facing America’s young people by narrowly focusing attention only
on the youngest segment of the youth population. The Institute of Medicine’s comprehensive
study was concerned with food consumption by all children, 18 and under. 291
Adolescents may be even more at risk of consuming a “high-calorie, low-nutrient” diet
than younger children. Teens spend more of their own money on food, make more of their
food choices independently of their parents, and do more of their food consumption outside
of the home. Food marketers can now target teens through an explosion of new digital
venues—including social networking platforms, peer-to-peer video, instant messaging,
interactive games, and cell phones—completely bypassing any parental oversight. And
because the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects only children under
the age of 13, adolescents are also subjected to some of the most extensive behavioral
marketing in contemporary media.
In the new world of digital media, clear demarcations of age are increasingly
blurred. Many of the current websites and online platforms are directed at broad demographic
categories encompassing children, teens, and young adults. 292 For example, a
report by the industry trade publication eMarketer View explained that “tweens” are “children
(boys and girls) who are between the ages of 8 and 11,” while pointing out that
“some researchers include ages as low as 7 and as high as 14” in the “tween” category.
The report identified “young teens” as between 12 and 14 and “youths” as between the
ages of 12 and 17. 293 In the virtual world of Whyville, “tweens” are defined as 8-15. 294
The interactive game service XFire says that it targets “males 14-35.” 295 And Bolt.com
explains to prospective advertisers that 31 percent of its “target demo” of 5.5 million
monthly users falls into the age range of 12-17, even though its privacy policy says it is
targeted to 13 and over. 296 Such confusing configurations suggest a media environment
in which the traditional concepts of age no longer apply. Just as advertising and content
are conflated, so are the very categories of childhood.
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