“Children are being paid up to £25 a week to promote sugary soft drinks and other products through social networking sites and playground chat,” claims a February 15, 2010, report published in the Daily Mail. Titled “Child ‘Mini-Marketers’ Paid by Junk Food Firms to Secretly Push Products Among Their Friends,” the article focuses on an advertising website, Dubit Insider, that offers vouchers worth £25 and free samples to children who sign on to become “brand ambassadors.” The Daily Mail alleges that this website recruits children ages 7 to 24 to “promote brands, products and services” among their peer group, suggesting that Dubit members can use their experience to enhance their college applications. “Companies are not just stalking kids online,” one consumer advocate was quoted as saying. “Close on half a million young people in the UK alone have been enlisted by big youth brands, and that’s the figure from just one…
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The Council of Better Business Bureaus’ National Advertising Division (NAD), which serves as the investigative arm of the advertising industry’s voluntary self-regulation program, has recommended that Heartland Sweeteners cease making some claims about its Ideal® sweetener product. The recommendation apparently followed a complaint by Merisant Co., a Heartland competitor, that Ideal® is not “natural” or “more than 99 percent natural” as the company claims because the majority of its sweetness comes from the artificial sweetener sucralose. While Heartland agreed that its sweetener contains sucralose, the company contends that the natural sweetener Xylitol is the product’s main ingredient. According to NAD, Ideal® as a whole may be “more than 99% natural,” but “the context in which it is presented may still cause it to convey a message that is false or misleading to consumers.” NAD found that the product’s sweetness is “not due primarily to Xylitol, but, rather, the synthetic sucralose it…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a notice seeking public comments on a proposed set of self-regulatory guidelines submitted by i-SAFE, Inc. under the safe harbor provision of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. Comments must be submitted by March 1, 2010. The organization that prepared the proposed guidelines is a non-profit that for some years has partnered with industry to provide educational programs for children about online safety issues. It recently determined that it would become involved in assisting and licensing online “operators” with children’s online privacy issues. Among other matters, the i-Safe guidelines would (i) provide notice to parents about the information collected from children by i-Safe licensees, (ii) require verifiable parental consent for the collection of personal information from children; and (iii) provide parents with an opportunity to view the information collected and prevent its further dissemination. See Federal Register, January 13, 2010. In recent years,…
The 34-member Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) is scheduled to discuss 12 specific recommendations for protecting children from the marketing of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverages at the board’s upcoming 126th session slated for January 18-23, 2010, in Geneva. The proposed mechanisms for promoting “responsible” marketing of such fare are contained in the annex to a recent WHO report focusing on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. According to the report’s annex, “many countries, including those with restrictions in place, are exposed to food marketing in their country from beyond their borders” and the “global nature of many marketing practices needs to be addressed.” Overall, the recommendations strive to provide a comprehensive approach for Member States to draft policies that lessen “the impact on children of marketing of foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt.” More specifically, they champion (i) Member State…
Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced a bill (H.R. 4310) that would amend the tax code to deny “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.” The proposal defines “food of poor nutritional quality” as food “determined by the Secretary (in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Federal Trade Commission) to provide calories primarily through fats or added sugars and to have minimal amounts of vitamins and minerals.” Among those advertising-related expenses that could not be deducted would be travel (including meals and lodging), “goods or services of a type generally considered to constitute entertainment, amusement, or recreation or the use of a facility in connection with providing such goods and services,” gifts, and other promotion expenses. The bill, which has four co-sponsors, was referred to the…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently hosted a forum titled “Sizing up Food Marketing and Obesity,” which heard proposals from federal agencies, consumer watchdogs and industry representatives for regulating food advertising to children. In addition to addressing new research, First Amendment issues and self-regulatory initiatives, the forum unveiled a set of proposed nutritional standards (SNAC PAC) developed by an interagency working group at the request of Congress. Co-authored by FTC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Department of Agriculture, SNAC PAC sets out three standards designed to limit the marketing of foods to children ages 2 through 17. Standard I describes foods that “are part of a healthful diet and may be marketed to children without meeting Standards II and III,” including (i) “100 percent fruit and fruit juices in all forms”; (ii) “100 percent vegetables and vegetable juices in all…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has issued a report alleging that “nearly 80 percent of food ads on the popular children’s network Nickelodeon are for foods of poor nutritional quality.” Titled “Better-For-Who? Revisiting company promises on food marketing to children,” the analysis purportedly revealed that one-fourth of the food and beverage advertisements aired on Nickelodeon “were from companies that don’t participate in the industry’s self-regulatory program,” the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI). The watchdog also criticized CFBAI signatories for promoting products that failed to meet CSPI’s stringent nutritional benchmarks. “Of the 452 foods and beverages that companies say are acceptable to market to children, CSPI found that 267, or nearly 60 percent, do not meet CSPI’s recommended nutrition standards for food marketing to children,” claimed the group in a November 24, 2009, press release. “Nickelodeon should be ashamed that it earns so much money…
Concluding that alcohol ads are viewed more than 18,000 times by public school student transit passengers during an average weekday, a new study recommends that Boston’s public transit system be prohibited from displaying alcohol advertisements. Justin Nyborn, et. al, “Alcohol Advertising on Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Transit System: An Assessment of Youths’ and Adults’ Exposure,” American Journal of Public Health (November 2009). Some 9,600 students aged 11-18 use the transit system daily. Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health who co-authored the study, said, “By allowing alcohol advertising on the T, the state is not only allowing alcohol companies to bombard our kids with enticing advertisements, it is also allowing these companies to successfully recruit new drinkers among underage youths in the Commonwealth.” Siegel’s primary research interest is in tobacco control. See BU School of Public Health: The Insider, November 4, 2009. In a…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a December 15, 2009, public forum titled “Sizing Up Food Marketing and Childhood Obesity,” which will include panels of industry representatives, federal regulators, consumer groups, scientific researchers, and legal scholars. The forum will address (i) the progress of self-regulatory initiatives, particularly the food and entertainment industries’ responses to the 2008 FTC report, “Marketing Foods to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities, and Self-Regulation”; (ii) current research on the impact of food advertising on children; and (iii) the statutory and constitutional issues surrounding governmental regulation of food marketing. In addition, representatives from FTC, the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Agriculture will report on the status of recommended nutritional standards for foods marketed to children. See FTC Press Release, September 29, 2009.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has filed a new complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) claiming that the California Milk Advisory Board “is deliberately misleading consumers by advertising in its sales-promotion campaigns that cows on California dairy farms live in ‘comfort,’ are ‘very well cared for,’ and are ‘happy.’” According to the animal rights organization, “these statements do not stand up to even passing scrutiny.” An organization spokesperson alleges that, “conditions commonly found on California’s factory dairy farms have been scientifically proven to cause cows extreme physical pain and mental distress.” According to a news source, PETA filed a similar complaint with the FTC in 2002, but it was not resolved. PETA apparently claims that its new complaint is necessary because conditions have worsened on California dairy farms. The organization has also reportedly filed litigation over the issue, but the lawsuit was dismissed when the courts…
