Krafty Kraft

In January, Kraft announced that it would be reducing its advertising of junk food products to children by not advertising to children under age 6 and by not advertising unhealthy products like Oreos during TV programs aimed at children ages 6-11.  Kraft was celebrated for taking seriously the childhood obesity epidemic and self-regulating the advertising of its unhealthy products to children. 

In July, the FTC held a conference entitled Marketing, Self-Regulation, and Childhood Obesity, which was supposed to 

"bring together representatives from food and beverage companies and media and entertainment companies, medical and nutrition experts, consumer groups, advertising specialists, and other key experts for an open discussion on industry self-regulation concerning the marketing of food and beverages to children, as well as initiatives to educate children and parents about nutrition."

In her article on Alternet, public health professional Michelle Simon suggests that the entire conference was more of a PR boost for the food industry than it was a real discussion advocating for the improved health of American children.  Hmmm....think Kraft could have been using their sudden sense of responsibility as a PR stunt?

Let's see how Kraft is doing: Check out the 4th one down on the AdAge website fortheir latest commercial for Oreo's, which AdAge describes as

"Girl. Girl. Girl. Cookie. Cookie. Cookie. Everything comes in triplets in this new Oreo commercial. Lovingly sensitive, in an anti-obesity kind of way, the commercial spotlights three physically active young dancers and has an audio track of ballet music. Healthy. Healthy. Healthy."

Am I missing something?  As far as I can tell the only "physically active" thing these young ballerinas are doing is dipping their cookies in time to the music.  Kudos to Kraft for putting only two cookies on each plate, but I thought they weren't supposed to be advertising to 6 year olds.  How many 6 year old girls (and some boys too) do you know who would not be captivated by three little girls in pink tutus?! Plus, how many 6-11 year olds ONLY watch age-appropriate television?  I'm guessing that with over half of American children having televisions in their own bedrooms, there are a lot of viewers under 11 who see this ad, and relate to it.  If selling Oreos to little kids is Kraft and AdAge's idea of "Healthy. Healthy. Healthy." self-regulation may not be the most effective strategy in dealing with the rampant advertising of junk food to kids.

In Europe, health officials are giving the food companies a chance to self-regulate, but if changes aren't made, the government is threatening to step in and ban all advertising of food products to children.  Let's hope the U.S. government will take a hint from the EU and not back down like they did at the recent FTC conference.

To learn more about the food industry targeting children check out "Consuming Kids" by Susan Linn.

Comments

[mark vallianatos]

Last night I saw a rerun of a Simpsons episode about school vending machines I had missed when it originally aired in May. Bart & Lisa's school installs a new set of hip-hop-spouting, light-flashing vending machines featuring Scammer & Z-dog, two urban cartoon dudes. Bart succumbs to their lure. Within three weeks of stuffing his face with the hydrogenated petroleum oil and partially-deweaponized plutonium-laden snacks, he becomes obese and has a heart attack. By the end of the show Bart admits (something to the effect that) "I’ve learned that even made up corporate shrills can lie to you." So this morning I notice a nutrition-oriented billboard on Eagle Rock blvd close to our work. It's a nutrition network/5-a-day sponsored ad that urges us not to take childhood obestity lightly. There are no flashing lights, zero hipness quotient. The contrast raises the central question of how to wage a social marketing campaign on a field that, as Amanda comments, is massively tilted towards ads for crappy food. The answer may be embedded somewhere in the meaning of "cool" and in short circuiting the associations that corporate ad agencies are so skilled at making. Anyway, Amanda was modest in her post in not mentioning that she and Andrea and Bob and myself have drafted an article on the subject of food ads and kids and place-based interventions for a special issue of the Loyola Marymount Law Review. We'll let you know when its out.