Media Advertising: Affecting Our Youth s Health

Transcription

1 Media Advertising: Affecting Our Youth s Health Jillian Hibbs Introduction Over the past few decades, a very serious epidemic has spread across the United States. Even worse, in the past decade, it has affected our youth more than any other age group. This epidemic is called obesity and is considered one of the primary child health problems in industrialized countries (Story, 2003). Childhood obesity is a medical condition that affects children all over the world, but is more prevalent in the United States. It is characterized by a weight well above the mean for the child s height and age and a body mass index well above the norm. In the United States, 15 percent of children and teens ages 7 to 17 are overweight, a nearly three-fold jump since Being overweight is associated with over 400,000 deaths a year, along with many other diseases and heart problems (Newman, 2004). But what is causing our children to become so overweight? Some experts believe it is because of one s genes, others say it is the parents fault for not monitoring what their children eat. But what makes these children want to eat the way they do? A major factor contributing to this epidemic is advertising and marketing. With the recent explosion of the internet in the past 15 years and the expansion to digital cable, children have become even more exposed to advertisements and marketing, that lure them to a more unhealthy eating regimen. Advertising targets children and influences more than eating habits. Companies selling all types of products are aiming their marketing campaigns at children. The Impact of Television Advertising

2 One of the greatest factors that influences a child s eating habits is what that child sees on the television. This is a source of concern for public health officials, since over 70 percent of food product commercials advertise for high-sugar, high-fat foods (Fonda, 2004). Since television is the most widely used advertising medium, it is important to recognize that children are being exposed to so many food messages each day (Story, 2003). Television is a major contributing factor in influencing children s junk food purchases and fueling the obesity epidemic. The publicly responsible action would be for marketers to use the television media more constructively to better the health of children. Food advertising aimed towards children has spun out of control. It has been infiltrating schools, sports arenas, the web, newspapers, and mainly television, where advertising has become available on a constant basis, especially since the boom of 24-hour-a-day children s programming on cable and satellite television. Children are now exposed to over 40,000 television ads a year, doubling since Ads for high-fat, high-salt foods have more then doubled since the 1980s, while commercials for healthy foods are in short supply (Fonda, 2004). How many commercials are run for fruits and vegetables as compared to those for Kraft Easy Mac and Twix Bars? Candy, soft drink, and sweetened cereals are traditional kids products that are constantly in the spotlight. These types of products have expanded their sales and offerings greatly in the past few years. Snack food shelves are bigger than ever, especially for candy and potato chips, two of the unhealthiest choices for kids. Also, the range of these products has increased rapidly. The number of different types of candies is endless, and our society has every flavor of potato chip imaginable (McNeal, 1998).

3 Other Marketing Tactics Another aspect of the marketing is the location of these products in the supermarket. Placing products near the cash register and on lower shelves for children to easily see, are ways to entice children to purchase these products (McNeal, 1998). Cookies are placed on the shelf at the same level as a child would be seated in a shopping cart. The placing of these products is not by coincidence. It is part of the marketing strategy employed by the companies that make these foods, along with the supermarkets, to increase consumer purchases. Marketers use a variety of tactics to lead children towards the candy aisles in the supermarket and to other unhealthy foods. Besides the greater amount of commercial airtime unhealthy food gets, marketers also make high-fat, high-sugar foods more pleasing to the eye. Bright colors and graphics that would be fun to a child draw children towards these products and in turn, increase their sales. Another common way to increase sales for children is to put what is popular with children on a product s label. At the moment, SpongeBob Square Pants is a very popular cartoon character for children ages In 2007, Sponge Bob was found on the labels for Kellogg s Pop Tarts, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Oscar Meyer Lunchables; he is also used in some Kid s Meals in fast food restaurants. Since SpongeBob is so popular with kids right now, they are drawn to the products which are not the healthiest foods on the market (Kiley, 2007). Advertising and Ethics The practice of using cartoon characters as marketing agents and advertising so many unhealthy foods has become very controversial, especially in the past few years when the rate of child obesity has markedly increased. In the past decade, corporate America s annual budget for

4 advertising products and services to kids has more than doubled to an estimated $15 billion. This is because marketers are targeting children at younger and younger ages, and doing it in every way they possibly can, says James McNeal, who is a children s marketing consultant (McNeal, 1998). The main cause of concern is that marketers readily admit that children are being marketed to without their aware of it. According to Harris Interactive, an Internet marketing research company, 91 percent of kids are being pitched to in ways that they don t even notice. It is difficult for young children to distinguish between advertisements and entertainment. Child development professionals believe it can be appropriate to begin advertising to children around the age of seven, even though they also feel children cannot effectively separate fantasy from reality in media and advertising before age nine. Most children cannot make intelligent purchase decisions before the age of 12 (Fonda, 2004). A recent study by the American Psychological Association confirmed that children under the age of eight have a tough time distinguishing advertisements from entertainment (Fonda and Roston, 2004). The whole marketing business appears underhanded in the way it presents products to children without children being aware of it. With the technology available today, more companies are trying to use the Internet to branch out to children in ways not easily noticed. For example, McDonalds now has a children s website on the Internet that directs children to what they would get in their Happy Meals. Post, producer of cereals, has its own website devoted to children as well, which offers a full arcade of games involving different cereals like The Fruity Pebbles Quarry Adventure (Fonda, 2004). These games are linked to sweetened cereals and other types of products including sweetened fruit drinks like Kool-Aid.

5 Another strategy used by big marketing companies is to place ads on non-food websites. A children s website called Neopets.com, where children play games to win neopoints to help feed and take care of their Neopet, has certain games that use well-known companies as part of the game. For instance, there is the Lucky Charms Super Search, where kids look for marshmallow pieces to win points. There is also a virtual theater on the site where kids can watch movie trailers and other commercials. They can watch advertisements for cereal and other sweetened snacks without realizing that this is a type of marketing being used on them (Fonda, 2004). Non Food Companies Targeting Children Many companies not in the food industry are doing this as well. Retail companies, like Wal- Mart, have started their own marketing concept called retailainment. One of the activities used by the Wal-Mart company for their retailainment strategy was that children who visited Wal- Mart received a Bob the Builder (a popular cartoon character on Nickelodeon) coloring book and could go on a safety scavenger hunt that led them to the toy, hardware, and infant and toddler departments. This practice is used to attract ever younger, preschool children, who are thought to be vulnerable to advertising tactics (Fonda, 2004). At the present time, over two-thirds of major retail chains make some effort to target kids in their stores. This trend even includes retailers who have little or nothing to sell to children, such as auto dealers. This recognizes the pressure that children can bring to family decision making. The Philosophy of Marketing to Children Companies recognize there is more to the children s market than the immediate purchases made (McNeal, 1998). This is because children represent three distinct markets: primary, influence,

6 and future. The primary market is the money actually spent by children themselves. They receive this money through allowance, birthday money, and others types of currency gifts. Kids power over their money has induced many companies to introduce items to children that they could afford, and produce these items in a series to get the children to buy more and more. For example, Ty Inc., which is widely known for their Beanie Babies, had wonderful success by offering well over 100 different stuffed animals at about $6 dollars each; it is perfectly affordable for the average 10 year old. Also, if children are satisfied with that product, they will then persuade their parents to bring them back to that store to purchase another product (McNeal, 1998). The second market, the influence market, is where children direct parental expenditures. Well over $50 billion a year is spent on these kinds of purchases and the market is constantly growing. Requests for snack foods have become the main determinant of what is actually purchased by the household simply because the request gives direction to a purchase that otherwise might be postponed or not even considered by a busy or working parent (McNeal, 1991). Kids cannot influence parental spending unless their parents let them. There are two ways that children can determine parental spending. Direct influence is a child s request, demand or hint, often beginning with words I want... It is also present when there is joint decision making- when a children participates in the purchase with other family members. Then, there is indirect influence- when parents know the products that their child likes and buys them without being asked or told by the child. Most children usually have one brand that they prefer, and a few more that they will substitute if needed. With a growing number of products being put into

7 the market, it gives children more of a choice of products from which to choose, and more options for parents (McNeal, 1998). The third market is the future market. This is based on the premise that children will be full-time consumers as they grow older and become even more independent. When a company successfully nurtures children as customers before children actually have the power to buy their products, they often create loyal future customers that will remember their product name or brand in the future (McNeal, 1998). For example, a soft drink that is purchased mainly by adults, and only in a small amount by children, may be marketed to kids as a small primary market but additionally as a future market. Other companies use combination strategies to target younger children. Producers and retailers of consumer goods will find it beneficial to target children as future customers because then they will have loyal customers as the years progress. Children are consumers in training and whatever marketers can do to get them to remember a product, they will do (McNeal, 1991). The Influence on What Our Children Spending The main reason children buy the products they do, and spend so much money doing so, is that they watch so much television. Generation Y has grown up with many new types of media because of all the technology that has developed alongside of this age group. From the Internet to the ipod, children these days have a full array of different ways to be influenced by the media. But nothing is really more convincing to a child than a commercial during their favorite television show. A study done by Galst and Story (1976), examined how much purchase influence was generated for food products by the commercials viewed by children. Since there has been so

8 much controversy over the impact on children of televised food and toy advertisements, it is an issue that needs to be examined by marketers and consumers alike. The potential influence of commercials on a child becomes apparent when one considers that one out of every five hours of television watched is designed to influence consumer behavior through commercials. Galst found that the more enticing a child found the commercial often by focusing on the commercial rather than the program, the greater the number of purchase-influencing attempts in which the child engaged. Children s viewing behavior and their purchase-influencing attempts related to at least one aspect of the child s consumer behavior (Galst and Story, 1976). Children who are more alert to television commercials may be developing an attitude toward consumerism and product knowledge from commercial television. Children may learn about healthier food products through media, but the fact is that cereals and candy are still the most heavily requested items. These types of products are the most frequently advertised in commercials directed towards children. (Galst and Story, 1976). Policy Approaches All of this advertising to children is bringing pressure to marketers to be more socially responsible, given the problematic weight gain in children across the United States. There are other risks related to this weight gain and poor eating habits. Besides the high obesity rate itself, there is also an increase in Type 2 diabetes in youth. Studies have shown that 60 percent of overweight children have at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor (Story, 2003). Also, over consumption of sugar is related to cavities and tooth decay, especially at young ages (Galst, 1980). Countries like Norway and Sweden have banned all child-targeted television advertising. In Britain, the BBC has implemented a nutrition policy for its child characters, such as the

9 Teletubbies, and prohibited them from being associated with any type of unhealthy food (Fonda, 2004). Kelly Brownell, the director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders says that, although America will never ban child-targeted advertisement, there are steps that can be taken. One obvious step, Brownell says, is to remove soft drinks and snack foods from school vending machines. The problem is that bad food is cheap, heavily promoted and engineered to taste good. Conversely, healthy food is hard to find, not promoted nearly as much as unhealthy food, and is, for the most part, expensive (Newman, 2004). This can make healthy eating a chore in the United States. Americans work long hours, are overburdened and sleep deprived. Unhealthy food is easily accessible, and Americans are inclined to go for the easiest, simplest way to eat. Regardless of a desire to eat healthy, expediency may be a stronger force in food choices than good nutrition. The challenge is to make healthy foods that taste good and are convenient. Since it is much cheaper to put fat and salt into a food, the real expertise that it takes to make a healthy product is not profitable. Studies show that the more fat that is added to a product, the better the flavor (Kiley, 2005). Although the United States government is not doing much to help with this issue, it did begin a program called Verb. This is a campaign designed to reduce childhood obesity and encourage children to become more physically active. Unfortunately, absent from this campaign and its promotional materials, is any mention for the need for children to cut back on junk food (Fonda, 2004). Conclusion

10 Television is a medium that could be used as a powerful educational tool to inform children of good health and nutrition. Instead, it is used as a vehicle for unhealthy persuasion (Galst, 1980). Other countries have used government policy to force marketers to stop promoting (at least directly) unhealthy food to children. The United States is less likely to interfere with the profitability of major corporations and seems unwilling to take more dramatic steps. Yet, it is the United States that faces a potential health crisis, in part created by unhealthy eating. Such a public health crisis has tremendous costs of its own. The link between advertising and unhealthy eating is well documented. In one way or another, either through law or public pressure, something must be done to limit the negative influence that marketers are having on children s tastes. It is easy to say that parents simply have to exercise more control over what their children eat, but parents are under tremendous pressure and cannot hope to limit their children s access to media. If promotion to children is going to occur, and it appears inevitable, more healthy foods must be promoted, and children must eat healthier. In addition, this country must address an obesity epidemic. Only then can the United States look toward a healthier future. References Fonda, D. (2004, June 7). Kill the messenger? Time, 163, Fonda, D. and Roston, E. (2004, June 28). Pitching it to kids. Time, 163, Galst, J.P. (1980), Television food commercials and pro-nutritional public service announcements as determinants of young children s snack choices.

11 Child Development. 51, Galst, J.P. and Story, M. (1976). The unhealthy persuader: The reinforcing value of television and children s purchase-influencing attempts at the supermarket. Child Development. 57, Kiley, D. (2005, February 17). Sponge bob: For obesity or health? Business Week Online. Retrieved on October 19, 2007 from EBSCOHost Academic Search Premier database. McNeal, J. (1998). Kids markets. American Demographic. 20, McNeal, J. (1991). Planning priorities for marketing to children. The Journal of Business Strategy. 34, Newman, C. (2004, August). Why Are We So Fat? National Geographic. 206, Story, M. (2003). Television and food advertising: An international health threat to children? Nutrition and Dietetics. 60 (2).