In the ongoing battle over whether the government should regulate food ads targeting children, the Food Marketing Workgroup (FMW), a coalition of more than 80 health groups and nutritionists, is putting pressure on Nickelodeon and its parent company, Viacom, to adopt nutrition guidelines for foods marketed to children, particularly foods that license Nickelodeon characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer. More than 55 health organizations and 30 prominent nutritionists, physicians and other experts signed a December 3, 2012, letter to Nickelodeon and Viacom urging them to implement stronger nutrition standards for the foods marketed to kids on Viacom’s various channels and that bear images of its characters. The group notes that although Viacom has taken some small steps in the right direction, it lags behind other children’s entertainment companies such as The Walt Disney Co. and ION Television, which have adopted comprehensive policies that apply nutrition standards to all…
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A federal court in California has certified a nationwide class and Washington subclass of individuals who received purportedly unsolicited text messages sent by OnTime4U to advertise Papa John’s pizza products. Agne v. Papa John’s Int’l, Inc., No. 10-1139 (W.D. Wash., decided November 9, 2012). An appeal was filed before the Ninth Circuit on November 26. According to the court, “OnTime4U apparently told Papa John’s franchisees that it was legal to send texts without express customer consent because there was an existing business relationship between the customers and the Papa John’s restaurants. Certain Papa John’s franchisees, including at least some of the Rain City Defendants, provided OnTime4U with lists of telephone numbers of individuals who had purchased pizza from them. Those lists were generated out of the PROFIT system, a proprietary database that Papa John’s describes as a ‘point of sale data entry system.’ . . . OnTime4U removed landline numbers from…
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld three challenges to marketing claims made by Santa Monica, California-based Neurobrands LLC about its line of “Neuro” beverages. Lodged in August 2011 before Commission Regulation (EU) No. 432/21012 established a list of permitted health claims for foods, the complainants argued that the claims appearing on Neurobrands’ website and posters were misleading, unsubstantiated and “misleadingly implied that a widespread vitamin D deficiency in women existed and that the product NeuroSun could treat that deficiency.” Upholding the three complaints, ASA barred the advertisements and advised Neurobrands “to seek advice before making future health and nutritional claims for foods, given the transitional period following the Regulations coming into force.” According to ASA, Neurobrands defended the “mental performance” claim for its NeuroSonic beverage by citing the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) “positive opinions” for caffeine and vitamin B12 with regard to “mental functions,” while noting that…
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced a bill to deny federal tax deductions to companies marketing “junk food” to children. The Stop Subsidizing Childhood Obesity Act (H.R. 6599) would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to protect children’s health by denying any deduction for advertising and marketing directed at children to promote the consumption of food at fast food restaurants or of food of poor nutritional quality.” In a recent press release, Kucinich contends that Congress—with [citizens’] tax dollars—has subsidized the marketing efforts of fast food and junk food companies by as much as $19 billion over the past 10 years. “In 2004 alone, $10 billion was spent on food advertising directed at children. It is effective because a child’s brain is unable to distinguish fact from fiction at a time they are developing life-long taste allegiance. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t do it. According to The Journal…
New York University Nutrition Professor Marion Nestle recently gave an interview to Childhood Obesity’s features editor, Jamie Devereaux, on healthy food access, the role of packaged foods in diets, and “the topic of peer pressure in eating fast food, sugar-sweetened beverages, and brand-name snacks.” While supporting federal policy to increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption in low-access areas, Nestle noted barriers to cooking at home such as a lack of proper equipment and a narrow food selection exacerbated by income inequality. But she also blamed industry for allegedly fostering peer pressure among young consumers to choose certain foods and beverages above others. “Food marketers deliberately target children and adolescents for marketing, much of it designed to associate the product to the emotional gains from peer bonding,” Nestle opined. “The purpose of food advertising is to make kids think they are supposed to be eating kids’ food—food made just for them—and that they know…
The Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) has sent a report to Australian officials on the country’s current self-regulatory system for food marketing, which OPC has described as “seriously flawed.” According to the coalition, the codes developed by the food industry to govern marketing to children “are extremely complex,” resulting in “a litany of loopholes” that companies have allegedly exploited “to promote their products despite childhood obesity sitting at record levels.” In particular, the report claims that self-regulatory codes (i) do not apply to all food advertisers or all age-groups of children, (ii) “only cover advertising that is ‘directed primarily to children,’” (iii) fail to cover many forms of promotion and media, and (iv) rely on “unclear” criteria for determining what is healthy or unhealthy. It also finds the administration and enforcement of these codes “grossly inadequate” since “the scheme relies entirely on complaints from the public.” Faulting the Advertising Standards Board…
Dr. Pepper Snapple Group has reportedly announced that it will remove its 7UP products with antioxidants from the market by early 2013. The company evidently denied that its decision was related to a lawsuit filed against it by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which had alleged that the products were falsely advertised. Additional information about CSPI’s lawsuit appears in Issue 461 of this Update. According to a Dr. Pepper statement, the decision to reformulate the product for consistency across its brands was made in 2011 and that it had met with CSPI to discuss the organization’s claims this summer. The company also noted that its 7UP Cherry clearly states on the label that it is a “cherry-flavored soda that does not contain juice.” See Associated Press, November 8, 2012.
“If even the ad industry can’t agree on the definition of an online ad, who can?,” asks The Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang in this November 2 article highlighting the “increasingly thorny debate on how to monitor advertising aimed at children when they are confronted with so many new forms of marketing online.” Kang reports that both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission regulate traditional media but have thus far failed to restrict online advertising to kids, leading consumer groups to question the supposedly “lax oversight of digital marketing.” “There is a great deal of research that shows children don’t distinguish between content and advertising,” American University Communications Professor Kathryn Montgomery was quoted as saying. “Now on digital, there is the opportunity of more blurring of those lines, and the industry is pushing to keep definitions of online advertising broad and unclear.” In particular, Kang notes that even…
University of Wyoming College of Law Professor Mary Dee Pridgen has updated a treatise titled Consumer Protection and the Law to reflect recent developments in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement of its 1995 policy statement on food advertising. As she notes, although FTC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have overlapping authority to police food advertising claims, they have generally divided their duties with FDA concentrating on food labels and FTC addressing advertising claims. FTC indicates in the policy statement that it will give advertisers “a bit more leeway in advertising than the FDA allows on labels,” but if an advertising claim complies with FDA labeling regulations, it will “generally be safe from FTC scrutiny.” Pridgen discusses FTC enforcement actions since the mid-1990s, involving Stouffer Foods, Häagen-Dazs, the Isaly Klondike Co., Mrs. Fields Cookies, Dannon, Gerber, and Kellogg, as well as companies that sell dietary supplements. She concludes, “In…
McDonald’s Corp. has reportedly announced plans to scrap “forward-to-a-friend” features on some of its online games after drawing complaints from a consumer group concerned about children’s privacy. According to media sources, the global restaurant chain said it will disable a sharing option on HappyMeal.com that allowed users “to e-mail ecards, links and photos to family and friends.” “Rest assured, the online security of our guests—especially our youngest guests—remains a top priority for us,” a company spokesperson told reporters. “We continuously review and enhance our sites as appropriate and we recently made some updates to HappyMeal.com, including removing the forward-to-a-friend option.” Earlier this year, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) filed five complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against companies such as McDonald’s and General Mills, Inc. over the use of interactive media to allegedly promote foods and TV programs to children. CDD claimed that these so-called “viral marketing” techniques…
