Marketing has a profound affect on the foods we eat and the beverages we drink, yet most of that marketing is for products we should avoid. BMSG monitors the media to help keep advocates informed of the tactics food and beverage companies use to target children, communities of color, and other groups that are particularly susceptible to the health harms these products cause. Below are archives of our monitoring.
Source: Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity on December 19, 2013
Marion Nestle provides an overview of the Chilean ministry of health's recently issued rules for food labeling and marketing to children. She points out that the new guidelines are substantially stricter than anything ever proposed in the United States.Source: PR Newswire on December 19, 2013
Frito-Lay's recently ended "Score for your school" campaign urged Texas consumers to buy Frito-Lay products to raise money for high school athletics, in part by aligning the program with the values "leadership, teamwork, and cooperation."Source: QSR Magazine on December 19, 2013
Observing that "[video] game releases and wing cravings go hand in hand with [their] fan base," Wingstop and Dr Pepper have launched #FlavorFight, a holiday promotional contest. Fans who use social media networks to vote for their favorite Wingstop flavor are eligible to win prizes, including GameStop gift cards.Source: MediaPost on December 19, 2013
The Food and Drug Administration has responded to requests from food manufacturers and others to extend the comment period on its preliminary decision to classify partially hydrogenated oils as food additives that must be regulated. The extended comment period will end in March of 2014.Source: MediaPost on December 19, 2013
Marketers recognize that low-income consumers, especially low-income Latino consumers, must sometimes make trade-offs as they decide which necessities to purchase. Writer Roberto Siewcyznski urges marketers and retailers to follow "a separate set of rules ... to reach lower-income Hispanic shoppers," such as employing innovative media channels that enable advertisers to "dial into this shopper with non-traditional and highly targeted vehicles."Source: FoodBev.com on December 17, 2013
A new promotion from Pizza Hut requires customers to download an app to capture an image of the pizza box, which then unlocks additional content in the Xbox Forza 5 Motorsport game. As research shows that young boys and teens are prime gaming audiences, they may be the targets of this promotion.Source: FoodNavigator-usa.com on December 13, 2013
A quote from one of the marketing executives behind the campaign demonstrates how feel-good promotions play into larger corporate strategies: "The Built with Chocolate Milk campaign gives the industry the opportunity to build a legacy product that extends milk's brand and nutritional equality for years to come, and also builds momentum in other industry areas, such as the defense of chocolate milk in schools."Source: Progressive Grocer on December 13, 2013
The social media campaign urges users to make holiday music with empty Bud bottles and encourages customers to upload videos of themselves making music using Budweiser bottles. The company plans to feature the videos in a compilation that will air on the Times Square Billboard.Source: BuzzFlash on December 12, 2013
In this blog post, writer Jim Hightower pulls back the curtain on Coke's "Cap the Tap" program, which provides a guide for restaurant managers to upsell Coke products in lieu of water. He argues that the program, in conjunction with Coke's other efforts to circumvent science that would prove the health harms of their products, represent "sneak attack[s] on consumers" that directly contradict the company's recently stated interest in addressing rising obesity rates.Source: U.S. News & World Report on December 12, 2013
This blog post from Chef Ann Cooper highlights the new "greenwashing" tactics that companies like McDonald's use to make their food, and the practices that produce it, appear healthy and "natural." "It's safe to say that most fast-food chains are making their profits at the cost of our children's health," says Cooper.
