March 9, 2016
Marketing to children
In the past, the Saturday morning ritual for many North American children was a common one: clad in pajamas (sometimes the ones with the feet), we plopped down on the floor in front of the television (often a black and white set, and likely the only one in the house), and we watched cartoons for hours, a bowl of sweet cereal tucked firmly in our laps. Often it didn鈥檛 matter to us whether there was milk, or whether the sugary morsels were eaten right out of the box.
Probably not too healthy, but who cared? Most certainly not us kids.
How did we learn about those breakfast delights? Simple advertising on that TV brought cartoon characters to our living rooms鈥攁 tiger, a leprechaun, a wacky pirate, three little guys who snap-crackled-and-popped their way into our bowls鈥攖hey resembled the shows we watched and provided the advertisers a straightforward, tried-and-true method to sell a product to us, the captive audience.
Fast forward to 2016.
Saturday morning cartoons have given way to on-demand programming, and children are discovering electronic media at an increasingly early age. Today, it鈥檚 not uncommon for four and five year olds to be computer literate and comfortable finding their way around the internet.
So what better way for a company to reach its audience than through its website, in a fun and interesting manner?
According to Jewel Loewen, a graduate student in the program, websites marketing packaged food products to children are widely accessible, and many are employing interactive games, or 鈥渁dvergaming鈥, to enhance their appeal.
鈥淲ith such cleverly designed and highly appealing online strategies,鈥 she explains, 鈥渋t hardly comes as a surprise when children continue to struggle in making effective nutrition choices.鈥
Media literacy key to making informed decisions
Loewen, who is supervised by both Werklund鈥檚 and , professor in the Department of and the , is focusing her master鈥檚 research on assessing a program developed for Alberta schools by Elliott.
In an effort to increase media and food packaging literacy, the have already been presented to over 400 school children throughout the province. Ultimately, this ongoing project aims to equip children with the skills necessary to navigate the food messages to which they are subtly--and often not-so-subtly-- bombarded. Loewen will specifically be looking at students鈥 understanding, retention, and application following participation in the Lesson Plan, informing current and future program delivery.
Understanding how marketers target the audience
Before focusing her investigation on the impact of the Lesson Plan, Loewen conducted research into how young people are targeted by advertisers, considering both the marketing techniques and the tools of interactivity employed by companies today. She chose breakfast cereals and online games as her focus, as the companies that make these products are the largest food marketers to children, and she selected five for comparison.
Her initial findings probably aren鈥檛 surprising to any parent with a tech-savvy youngster.
鈥淚n all of the games, bright colours, upbeat music, branded characters, and 鈥榣arger than life鈥 qualities such as celebrity endorsements, are prominent,鈥 she says. 鈥淎nd from the interactive perspective, themes include personal challenge, competition among online users, repetition, and incentives for continued play.鈥
鈥淏ecause the online games provide such an entertaining and immersive experience, they can lead to positive evaluations of the embedded brands, directly impacting a child鈥檚 perceptions of food products,鈥 she says.
Elliott says this type of targeted advertising towards children is part of the general critique of the commercialization of childhood. 鈥淭he incessant targeting of children as consumers is off-putting to many parents.鈥
鈥淏eyond this,鈥 says Elliott, 鈥渇ood marketing to children today is increasingly sophisticated. It spans a broad range of promotional techniques, including advertising, packaging, product placement, celebrity endorsements, advergaming, and viral marketing.鈥
鈥淲hile parents are the gatekeepers when it comes to the foods their children eat, all of these marketing tactics provide ways for the food industry to get around that 鈥榞ate鈥.鈥
Self-policing leaves room for interpretation
In 2007, 18 of Canada鈥檚 leading food and beverage manufacturers signed on to the . Each committed to refrain from advertising directly to children or, if they did, to only advertise healthier dietary choices. According to Elliott, who is also the in Food Marketing, Policy and Health, the Initiative covers advertising on television, radio, and through the internet and social media.
One tactic often employed in advertising is the use of a fun colourful character to sell the product and when it comes to breakfast cereals, most of us can name a handful of iconic mascots used over the years as the chief 鈥渟alespeople鈥 for the product line.
While the companies participating in the initiative have agreed to limit the manner in which they directly target young people, they seem to have found ways around their own regulations, and the breakfast mascots are one manner in which it鈥檚 done. 鈥淭his self-policing body claims that they do not advertise to children on the internet,鈥 says Elliott, 鈥渂ut those familiar spokes-characters are exempt from this criteria, which allows companies to claim they are not advertising to children, when in fact they actually are.鈥
And the advergames remain on the company websites.
Testing the hypothesis through playing the games
When Loewen played all the games herself, she says she was initially shocked at the overtness of some of the messaging. For example, in one product鈥檚 game, breakfast cereal explodes out of the box and across the screen, in effect being thrown in the face of the player. At the same time, a background song repeats the brand name, followed by, 鈥淓at 鈥榚m up, Eat 鈥榚m up.鈥
On another site, the character invites children to join him on a series of 鈥渕agical adventures.鈥 With each achievement, players are rewarded with trophies, potions, gems and stardust, enabling them to unlock new powers and expand their game options.
Loewen noted that while most of the games were directed towards children, there was one designed for adults. It encouraged players to 鈥渢urn back the clock鈥 and reclaim their childhood through increasingly complex word and number games. 鈥淚n this case,鈥 she says, 鈥渘ot only are the food consumers targeted, but also the primary food purchasers.鈥
Elliott says the question of how effective advergaming is remains to be answered. 鈥淭he studies, to date, are inconclusive. Some studies have shown that advergames lead children to prefer the foods in the game鈥攂ut this holds true for both unhealthy and healthy foods.鈥
鈥淥ther studies found that children who played an advergame for a particular sugary cereal did not make more product requests than children who did not play the game. More work needs to be done on this topic before we can make any firm claims.鈥
Loewen says that, from what she鈥檚 learned so far, the prevalence of online packaged food games is of clear concern to parents, teachers, consumer advocates, and policy makers alike. 鈥淏y addressing the tools of interactivity and marketing techniques in the games,鈥 she says, 鈥渨e can hopefully gain a clearer understanding of their impact.鈥
鈥淭his information, in turn, helps to develop more effective strategies for promoting children鈥檚 informed nutritional choices within changing food environments. 鈥