Advertising to Children in Canada - Childhood Obesity...

Healthier Nutrition For Kids – An Action Plan

Advertising to Children in Canada

Brian Cook, Toronto Public HealthFebruary 24, 2011

What’s Good About Children’s Advertising?

Sometimes healthy foods are advertised

Supports lots of children’s TV programming

Employs lots of people

Can be relevant & entertaining to children

And Now for the Rest of the Story…

A Brief History of Persuasion

1st ad agency

1st printing pressInvention of paper

How We Got Here…

“buy me and you'll get a good bargain”

Advertising Changes Dramatically in 1900s

Growing problem production outpacing demand

Advertising Seen as a Way to Boost Demand

“future of business lay in its ability to manufacture consumers, as well as products”

Marketers Got Smarter…

Realize the power of merging business’ values with those of society CONSUMERISM = PATRIOTISM

Marketers Got Smarter…

Marketers realized that it’s much more effective to appeal to:

than LOGIC

EMOTIONS

X

Appealing to Emotions

Please buy our running shoes. They’re statistically proven to be

the highest quality shoes you can buy

Reasonably priced ($89) Very comfortable We paid the people who made

them as much as we could You can buy them Bob’s Shoe

Store at 555 Retail Street

This (fake) ad for running shoes appeals to you logically

Appealing to Emotions

This one appeals to emotions......

In Search of New Markets, Advertisers Discover Children

An Explosion of Child-targeted Ads

Today’s children are exposed to a greater intensity & frequency of marketing messages than any previous generation

1960s 2010s

Why Advertise to Children?

Because it works!!!

But that’s not the whole story…………..

Building Lifelong Brand Loyalty

“A lifetime customer can be worth $100,000…….. For this reason, building brand loyalty is critical and marketing to kids is the best way to do so.”

A Key Factor Making Children so Appealing…

How much annual spending is the superconsumer responsible for in North America?

The “4 Eyed 4 Legged Superconsumer”

$1,000,000,000,000

Kidfluence, Pester Power & the Nag Factor

Children have lots of influence on household purchases

Advertising to children is a way to get to mom’s wallet

Source: Siegel & Custer. “Marketing to the Superconsumer - Mom and Kid”. Presentation at the 2007 Kid Power Conference

“Kidfluence”

How much household spending do Canadian “tweens” (age 9-14) influence each year?

$20 million

$200 million

$2 billion

$20 billion

“Kidfluence”

$20 billion!

$20B = combined wealth of world’s 28 poorest countries

Influence on Diet & Obesity

TV ads influence children’s: • food and beverage preferences• purchase requests• short-term consumption

Correlation btwn TV ad exposure & overweight/obesity

Vulnerability to Ads: Children vs Adults

Can be influenced by ads?

Age - 30Age - 6

Awareness of ads vs non-ads?

Understands persuasive intent?XCognitive ability to resist ads?XMotivation to resist ads? ??

Marketers’ Strategies

360º Marketing

Most Food As to Kids are Unhealthy

Food37%

Toys27%

Entertainment17%

Toiletries6%

Retail 3%

PSAs3%

Pharmaceutical2%

Cell Phone

2%

Other2%

Education1%

unhealthy95%

healthy5%

January 2008 sample – preliminary results from 12 country TV food ad studyChildren’s Programs in Children’s Peak Viewing Times

Frootloops Television Ad

Cartoon characters Funny voices Bright colours Fast animation/ editing Fast, playful music Playful storyline Fantasy scenario Link to website Contest

Techniques Marketers Use to Appeal to Children

Frootloops Website - Advergames

Viral Marketing

Strategy for marketers to tap into existing social networks and have consumers distribute ads to their friends

Viral Marketing

Sometimes it’s just about making something entertaining that spreads virally across the web

Source: Burger King’s Subservient Chicken campaign

Concerns Beyond Junk Food & Obesity

Limiting opportunities for creative play Promoting physical inactivity Promoting unhealthy body image Promoting sexualization of childhood Contributing to climate change (promoting

excessive consumption) Excessive commercialism and materialistic

beliefs

Bratz Cloe & sister doll Recommended for age 6-8

Raising Children as Consumers

Does promoting consumerism undermine the values of a healthy society?

Circumplex model of values, Schwartz (1992)

Advertising Regulation

Aren’t there laws to deal with all this?

Advertising Regulation

Laws prohibit deceptive & false advertising

But mostly advertising to children is regulated by industry itself

Industry Ad Self-Regulation

Canadian Children’s Food & Beverage Advertising Initiative

Industry Voluntary Changes

Example:

Companies pledged to change their advertising practices

Industry Voluntary Changes

Pledge to not use characters to sell food to children

Will not advertise in elementary schools

Some will only advertise “healthy dietary choices”

Some will not advertise food to children at all

Pledge to not use characters doesn’t apply to ones that advertisers created

vsX

But Lots of Loopholes…

specifically to sell food to children!!

Some Committed to Not Advertise to Kids, But…

Why are there Disney characters on this packaging?

Companies developed own definitions of “healthy dietary choices”, based on “established scientific criteria”

So what foods qualify as healthy?

“Healthy Dietary Choices”

? ?

“Healthy Dietary Choices”

“Healthy Dietary Choices”

“Healthy Dietary Choices”

Jan 2008 Dec 2008NOT “healthy” “Healthy”!!

Creative Labelling Practices

It’s Not Healthy & It’s NOT FOOD

Promoting unhealthy food to children also undermines the food literacy skills that children (& parents) need to develop

Policy Environment Scan

“So who’s doing something about this advertising

stuff?”

Many Recent Developments

WHO (2010) recs on restricting food marketing to children

(2010) F/P/T Ministers of Health called for restrictions on children’s food marketing as part of child obesity strategy

(2011) PHAC coordinated Expert Taskgroup on Food Marketing to Children

(2011) Private members’ bills to be introduced in some provinces

How Do We Tackle Such a Big Problem?

1. Promote Awareness of the Problem

Blow the whistle on questionable marketing practices

2. Challenge the Myths Head On

“Parents just need to turn off the TV”

Parents can’t do it alone, need to build an environment that helps parents and protects children

We already do it here

2. Challenge the Myths Head On

“Even if you want to ban children’s ads, all the cross-border ads would make any law meaningless.”

Not true, 89% of Canadian children’s viewing time is spent watching Canadian channels

2. Challenge the Myths Head On

“The Internet is the wild west, good luck regulating children’s ads there!”

Competition Bureau already investigates online marketing

Online enforcement for children’s ads much easier than hate material or pornography

3. Find Partners, Get Organized

Link w those who are already pushing for changes

Growing List of Supporters of Children’s Ad Restrictions: Ontario Public Health Association Toronto Board of Health Centre for Science in the Public Interest Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario Association of Local Public Health Agencies Parks and Recreation Ontario

Canadian Medical Association Ontario Medical Association Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada

4. Anticipate Industry Opposition

Industry opponents of ad ban using same arguments as Big Tobacco

For example….

Question effectiveness of ad banVoluntary approach

works fine

Question influence of advertising

Economic argument

The slippery slope argument

5. Work Locally

Provide parents/caregivers with consumer education info CCFC - www.commercialexploitation.org

Community activities to raise issue’s profile: TV Turn Off Week, experiment with ad free

environments, toy-free daycare/kindergarten

Establish regional/ provincial workgroups

Encourage your org/ local services to adopt a position on children’s ads

Healthier Nutrition For Kids – An Action Plan

Brian CookToronto Public Healthbcook@toronto.ca416-338-7864

Questions?

Comments?

Observations?