Study Claims Fast Food Companies Not Adhering to Child Marketing Pledges

A recent study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has claimed
that fast food TV advertisements directed at children have allegedly failed to
abide by Children’s Advertising Review Unit and Children’s Food and Beverage
Advertising Initiative recommendations that food products—as opposed
to toys, movie tie-ins and brands—should be the focus of youth marketing
messages. Amy Bernhardt, et al., “How Television Fast Food Marketing Aimed
at Children Compares with Adult Advertisements,” PLoS One, August 2013.
After reviewing all nationally televised advertisements for the top 25 quick
service restaurants (QSRs) in the United States, researchers with the Geisel
School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Public Health Advocacy Institute
reported that 99 percent of the 92 QSR children’s meal advertisements that
aired between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010, were attributable to either
McDonald’s or Burger King. They also purportedly found that—compared
with adult advertisements over the same period—visual branding, food
packaging and street views of the QSR restaurants were all more common in
child-directed advertising, while “toy premiums or giveaways were present
in 69% vs. 1% and movie tie-ins present in 55% vs. 14% of children’s vs. adult
advertisements.”

“Given health concerns about obesity and its relation to fast food consumption, enhanced oversight of QSR marketing to children at the local, state and federal level is needed to align QSR advertising to children with health promotion efforts and existing principles of honest and fair marketing to children,” concludes the study. “We suggest that annual evaluations are needed. In order to be effective, however, the monitoring needs to be conducted by an agency like the FTC [Federal Trade Commission]. If the same problems continue to be found in more contemporary advertisements despite continued self-regulation, further governmental action aimed at children’s food advertising may be warranted.”