Download television food advertising

Born to buy: How advertising targets
young consumers
Dr Emma Boyland
Biopsychology Research Group
Liverpool Obesity Research
Network
University of Liverpool
ADVERTISING AVENUES
Television and film
Product
Placement
Programme
sponsorship
Internet – Viral Marketing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVS1UfCfxlU&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM
Internet advergaming
Event sponsorship
TELEVISION FOOD ADVERTISING
The nature and extent of children’s
exposure
Current picture – extent and nature of food
advertising on UK TV in 2008
•14 most popular commercial
channels chosen:
• ITV
• Channel Four
• Five
• Nickelodeon
• Cartoon Network
• Jetix
• CiTV
• 4 Music (formerly The Hits)
• Smash Hits
• MTV
• Sky One
• Sky Sports 1
• E4
• Boomerang
Categorising the foods
Core foods
Bread (inc. rice, pasta, noodles)
Low sugar and high fibre breakfast cereals
Fruit and fruit products (no added sugar)
Vegetables and vegetable products (no added
sugar)
Low fat/reduced fat milk, yoghurt, cheese,
meat and meat alternatives (not crumbed
or battered)
Core foods combined (inc frozen meals and
sandwiches if less than 10g fat per
serving)
Baby foods (excl. milk formulae)
Bottled water
Non-core foods
High sugar/low fibre breakfast cereals
Crumbed/battered meat and meat
alternatives
Cakes and biscuits
Snack foods (e.g. crisps, cereal bars)
Fruit juice and fruit drinks, frozen/fried
potato products
Full cream milk, yoghurt, dairy desserts,
cheese, ice cream, chocolate and
confectionery
Fast food restaurants,
High sugar/fat/salt spreads
Sugar sweetened drinks and alcohol
Miscellaneous = vitamins and supplements, tea and coffee, supermarkets advertising core
foods/non-core foods/non-specified e.g. for non food items or not clearly core or non-core, baby
and toddler milk formulae.
Key findings – proportion of ads for food
35000
30000
19.6%
Total number of adverts
17.9%
25000
20000
12.8%
15000
8.4% 8.2%
10000
6.1%
4.7%
5000
0
3.7% 3.4%
2.4% 2.4%
1.9% 1.6% 1.5%
1.4% 1.4% 1.1% 0.8%
0.5% 0.0%
Key findings – types of foods advertised
2500
Total number of advertisements
12.3%
11.9%
2000
9.4%
8.4% 8.3%
1500
6.6%
6.0%
1000
4.3%
500
0
4.0%
3.8%
3.5% 3.3%
2.8% 2.7%
2.0%
1.5% 1.5% 1.5%
1.1% 0.9% 0.9%
0.7% 0.7% 0.5%
0.4% 0.4% 0.4%
0.2% 0.1%
Key findings – categories of foods
advertised
Proportion of food adverts
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Core
Non-core
Misc.
Examples of inter-channel variation
ITV
Sky Sports One
Cartoon Network
Nickelodeon
Differences between peak and non-peak
children’s viewing periods
Mean proportion of ads (%)
70
60
50
40
30
Peak
20
Non-peak
10
0
% of food
ads
% core
% non-core
% misc
PERSUASIVE TECHNIQUES USED
TO ADVERTISE TO CHILDREN
Persuasive appeals used in food adverts
aimed at children
60
% of advertisements
50
40
30
20
10
0
Promotional Characters
Celebrity endorsement
Brand equity characters
Promotional Characters
Licensed characters
Premium offers/giveaways
THE FOOD ADVERTISING
REGULATIONS
The New Legislation
• Ofcom Television Advertising of Food and Drink Products to
Children: Final Statement (22nd February 2007):
• PHASE 1 (April 2007): Comprised a total ban on HFSS adverts
around programmes aimed at children 4-9 years. Children’s
channels required to scale back HFSS advertising to 75% of 2005
levels.
• PHASE 2 (January 2008): The ban extended to children aged 4-15
years and HFSS advertising on children’s channels scaled back to
50% of 2005 levels.
• PHASE 3 (January 2009): Will ban all HFSS advertising on dedicated
children’s channels.
Determining Who Programmes Are
Specifically Aimed At
• Use of the BARB 120 Index to determine:
• ‘...programmes of particular appeal to children under 16’
BARB 120 index is based on the proportion of children in the audience
rather than actual viewing figures, so if a programme is also popular
with adults it is unlikely to reach 120 on the index even if over a
million children are watching!
Which? Consultation Response (2006)
Loopholes in the law
• Brand advertising is not included in
the legislation because of the
practical difficulties of doing so.
• Use of brand equity characters is not
regulated.
• Use of celebrities to promote foods
only prohibited if the celebrity ‘is of
particular appeal to children’.
• Representation of Happy Meal
altered to pass nutritional profiling
model.
EFFECTS OF FOOD ADVERTISING
Television and energy intake
• Television viewing has been associated with:
• Increased meal frequency (Stroebele & Castro, 2004).
• Fast food consumption (Taveras et al., 2006).
• Snacking (Snoek et al., 2006; Thomson et al., 2006).
• Increased intake of dietary fat (Epstein et al., 2005; Miller et al., 2008).
• Lower intake of fruit and vegetables (Boynton-Jarrett et al., 2003).
What effects do adverts have?
• Recent studies – brand preference (Robinson et al., 2007)
• Children tasted 5 pairs of identical foods and beverages, one item
was in packaging from McDonalds and the other item was in
matched but non-branded packaging
• They were asked if the two foods tasted the same or if one of the
foods tasted better than the other
• Children preferred the taste of food and drink items if they
thought they were from McDonalds
Our studies at the University of Liverpool –
food advertising and actual intake
Condition One
Condition Two
10 food adverts +
cartoon
10 non-food adverts +
cartoon
Advert recall/recognition test
Ad libitum Food Intake Measured
Height and weight measured at final visit
Low Fat
High Fat
Low Fat
High Fat
Savoury
Savoury
Sweet
Sweet
Low Energy
Density
Key findings: Halford et al., 2004 Appetite
• All children
increased intake of
SW and HFSAV foods
after food ads.
• OW and OB
children recognised
more FA than TA,
and more FA than
NW children.
• Recognition of
food ads correlated
with amount eaten
after those ads.
Creating Brand Preference in Children
(Consumer International, 2004)
6 months: Forming mental images of corporate logos and mascots.
2 years:
Children may already have beliefs about specific brands.
3 years:
Already making specific requests for brand name products.
Can identify brand names & logos especially with cartoon
characters.
Lifetime: A lifetime consumer in the US is worth an estimated
$100,000 to a retailer.
Children start to express self-care activities including food choice
between ages of 3-8 and these are stable by 9-11 years (Kennedy, 2000).
Brand-building must therefore start in toddler-hood (Story & French, 2004).
Find out more
To find out more about this research or any of the issues discussed contact:
Emma Boyland
Kissileff Human Ingestive Behaviour Laboratory, University of Liverpool
Telephone: 0151 794 1455
Email: [email protected]