State law approaches to address digital food marketing to youth: Executive summary
Thursday, December 19, 2013Excerpted from State Law Approaches to Address Digital Food Marketing to YouthWhy focus on digital food marketing?
Legal and child development scholars have identified promising theories for why all marketing, including digital food marketing, targeting children under 8 years of age, is inherently deceptive.1 Prior to age 8, research demonstrates that children cannot understand the persuasive intent of advertising. Food marketing campaigns targeting youth integrate food packaging, websites, mobile applications (apps), and viral marketing techniques to get children and teens to request and consume unhealthy food and beverage products. Our research into the digital marketing tactics currently being deployed with children and teens found a number of clearly articulable and specific state consumer protection law issues that warrant regulatory oversight. State governments are at a critical juncture with respect to ensuring the future health of their residents. Diet-related disease threatens the current and future well-being of children and teens. The Centers for Disease Control projects that by 2050, 1 in 3 U.S. adults could have diabetes.2 The number of diabetics living with limb loss is projected to triple by 2050, and African American and Hispanic diabetics are almost 3 times as likely as non-Hispanic white diabetics to lose a limb.3 Medical costs associated with diet-related disease are projected to rise between $22 and $48 billion per year by 2030 with a substantial portion paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.4 This chronic disease burden begins in childhood when eating preferences and food culture are ingrained. Food marketing plays a major role in the foods children and teens desire, perceive as tasting good, request their parents to buy for them and ultimately purchase for themselves. State oversight of digital food marketing is integral to protecting vulnerable child and teen consumers.The state consumer protection approach
This report focuses on how state consumer protection law can be used to limit harmful digital food marketing to children and teens. State consumer protection laws grant state attorneys general (SAGs) broad authority to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive marketing. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and self-regulatory bodies like the Better Business Bureau's Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) have, to date, been the primary players in oversight of food marketing to children. The magnitude of the health threats posed by diet-related disease and their impact on state healthcare systems is on par with tobacco-related disease. As occurred with tobacco marketing, intervention by SAGs is the game-changer needed to accelerate progress on food marketing to children.State law profiles
Ten states were selected based on the percentage of the child population residing in the state, prior SAG action to address food marketing, prior SAG action to address digital marketing in general, scope of consumer protection authority granted under state law, and geographic diversity. For each of the ten states we generated a digital marketing legal profile of laws and regulations beyond general prohibitions on unfair and deceptive acts and practices that might be used to curtail digital food marketing to children. See Appendix for AR, CA, CT, FL, IL, MA, NY, OR, TX and VA state profiles.Digital food marketing tactics selected for legal analysis
Digital food marketing encompasses a broad range of tactics. Marketing tactics were selected for state consumer protection legal analysis based, in part, upon whether the tactic:- Is material to the purchase of a food or beverage item by a child, teen or, in some cases, a parent
- Is unaddressed by self-regulatory guidelines (e.g., marketing targeting adolescents)
- Falls outside of the scope of the FTC's current rulemaking authority (e.g., unfair advertising to children)
- Has been the subject of prior self-regulatory enforcement, but remains relatively unchanged and widespread
- Exploits age-specific vulnerabilities of child and teen consumers.