.jpg?uuid=1LtK9IaKEeascqKZeTgUlQ)
Have you ever come across a digital Valentine Day’s card made by Taco Bell reading “Nacho average Valentine’ or have you ever voted on a new potato-chip flavor? Probably yes, especially for children and adolescents. It seems food and beverages companies have found clever ways to reach children and teenagers, encouraging them to interact with a brand and promote it to their friends. A famous example is the Mountain Dew’s DEWmocracy campaign, in which people played an online game to create a new soda flavor. In the next phase, participants were encouraged to recruit others to vote for their favorite flavor finalist. Not long after that mountain dew was ranked first on the tween’s list of “Newest Beverages” they had tried.
According to the article published on The Washington Post, marketing junk food to kids is proven to be effective at increasing child’s preference and consumption of advertised foods. Some of the ways used by these companies include games, animation and virtual realities that convince consumers that what they are watching or playing is not marketing. Food companies have created adver-games, where products were predominantly featured, codes to get to the next level were hidden in food products, and players could enter a new area only by inviting their friends to play. Additionally, using social networks brands track customers on social media to understand their purchasing behavior and pinpoint peer influences. For example, Mountain Dew created an exclusive, invitation-only social network for influential users, where the most loyal fans could endorse products.
The article in based off a paper submitted to The American Journal of Public Health, which posits that many companies realize that children and adolescents do not have the capacity to rationally consider advertising appeals and reject those not in their long-term interest or the self-regulatory abilities to resist the immediate temptation of the highly palatable foods typically promoted. Through social learning theory, continued exposure to advertising that promotes foods and beverages as fun, socially desirable and commonplace, with no negative consequences from consuming them, can influence children’s attitudes and consumption of the unhealthy foods commonly promoted. The findings of the study supports the published article and is in agreement with the reported results.
Food companies claim that the commercial speech doctrine allows them to openly and legally target these products to young people using sophisticated psychological techniques that take advantage of what advertising is how it affects consumer behavior. Health practitioners should fill in the gap by advising parents and guardians to monitor their children and adolescents online activity. Health practitioners can also give recommendation on resources that educate both parents and children on tactics brands use to reach younger audiences. So next time your child shows an interest in a certain unhealthy food, take the time to discover where they first came across the product.
References:
- Harris, J. L., & Graff, S. K. (2012). Protecting Young People From Junk Food Advertising: Implications of Psychological Research for First Amendment Law. American Journal of Public Health, 102(2), 214–222. http://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300328