Posts Tagged ‘targeted marketing’
Posted on Monday, December 16th, 2013 by Michele Simon
by Michele Simon and Cara Wilking
Looking back at 2013, while the food movement made progress in certain areas (such as school food and GMO labeling), when it comes to exploitative food marketing to children meaningful change remains elusive. Let’s Move director and White House chef Sam Kass recently acknowledged the obvious when he said this issue was “really tough” given how much money is at stake for industry.
All we seem to hear from the major food corporations about marketing to children are self-serving promises and announcements of future changes. As public health lawyers, that got us wondering, who’s making sure even these minimal commitments are being kept? The question is worth exploring if we want to actually improve children’s diets—not just create positive PR buzz for Big Food. With reports of adults ever-deteriorating eating habits in 2013 coupled with appalling teen heart health, the health stakes are too high to just wait for the food industry to do the right thing.
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Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Food Law, Food Policy, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: advertising regulation, Big Food, child nutrition, childhood obesity, fast food, junk food, Let's Move, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Tuesday, October 29th, 2013 by Michele Simon
New report from Eat Drink Politics exposes McDonald’s charitable activity as a marketing tool to deflect critics
Pop quiz: Who do you think funds the hundreds of Ronald McDonald Houses around the nation? McDonald’s right? Sort of, but not really. While McDonald’s gets 100 percent of the brand benefit from Ronald McDonald House Charities, the burger giant only provides about 20 percent of its funding globally. At the local level, it’s closer to ten percent, with some of that money coming from donation boxes at McDonald’s outlets, that is, from customers.
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Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: child nutrition, childhood obesity, marketing, marketing practices, McDonald's, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (34) |
Posted on Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Last month, I participated in an important panel at a childhood obesity conference to discuss the current strategy backed by some advocacy groups: asking industry to market “healthier” foods to children. But as Susan Linn and I recently argued, any marketing to children is harmful, regardless of the product’s nutritional content. Instead of begging corporations to tweak the grams of sugar, fat and salt that these highly processed junk foods contain, we should demand that industry stop exploiting children altogether. Some advocates argue this approach is too radical. But it’s actually far more practical and ultimately more effective because of certain key tactics that industry uses to target children.
Read rest at Corporate Accountability International.
Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: Big Food, child nutrition, childhood obesity, Corporate Accountability International, McDonald's, targeted marketing, voluntary self-regulation | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Last week at a childhood obesity conference, I participated in an important panel to discuss what has become a controversial strategy among some advocates for children’s health: calling on industry to market “healthy” food to children.
As Susan Linn and I explained in our recent article, any marketing to children is deceptive and harmful; it doesn’t matter what the product is.
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Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Marketing to Children | Tagged: Big Food, childhood obesity, fast food, General Mills, Kellogg, McDonald's, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |
Posted on Wednesday, May 29th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Last week at McDonald’s annual shareholder’s meeting, CEO Don Thompson got caught off-guard when a team of 15 advocates, led by Corporate Accountability International, descended upon corporate headquarters to question the fast food leader’s relentless exploitation of children and communities of color.
Read rest at Corporate Accountability International ….
Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children | Tagged: child nutrition, childhood obesity, fast food, junk food, McDonald's, nutrition labeling, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (2) |
Posted on Monday, May 6th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Last week, Monster Beverage filed an unusual lawsuit against the San Francisco City Attorney’s office to stop an attempt to place restrictions on the company’s highly caffeinated and potentially harmful products aimed at youth. This aggressive move is a form of backlash against using the legal system to hold the food and beverage industry’s accountable for deceptive marketing practices.
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Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children | Tagged: advertising regulation, child nutrition, Chobani, Coca-Cola, ConAgra, deceptive health claims, FDA, Frito-Lay, General Mills, GMOs, Happy Meals, law, litigation, natural, PepsiCo, targeted marketing, vitaminwater, Whole Foods | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (14) |
Posted on Monday, April 8th, 2013 by Michele Simon
With the passage of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010, in addition to improving school meals, Congress required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to update nearly non-existent nutrition standards on so-called competitive foods. These are foods sold outside the school meal program, including fast food items sold alongside the reimbursable lunches, and soft drinks and junk food sold in vending machines, school stores, fundraisers, and the like.
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Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Food Policy, Marketing to Children | Tagged: Center for Food Safety, school food policy, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (8) |
Posted on Friday, March 15th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Hope to see you at one of these venues. To have me speak in your area, contact me here.
New York City
March 20: CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College
• Force Fed: How Food Industry Disinformation Undermines Public Health
For details, see PDF flyer.
Boston
March 21-23
Consuming Kids Summit: Reclaiming Childhood from Corporate Marketers
• Is This Even Legal? Demystifying the Laws on Marketing to Children (panel)
• Slowing Down the Clown: Policy Tools to Protect Children from Fast Food in Your Area (workshop)
Southern California
April 9: Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, Occidental College, Los Angeles
• Force Fed: Deconstructing Food Industry Lies
Class begins at 1:30pm; Room: Lower Herrick.
June 18-20: 7th Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference, Long Beach
• Marketing healthy foods to children: Do the ends justify the means? (panel discussion)
Posted in Food Policy, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: deceptive health claims, law, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Sign at Mom’s Organic Market
As the frequent bearer of bad news about the food industry, I am thrilled to share a positive story. Last month, MOM’s Organic Market, a small retail chain based in the Baltimore area, announced it would stop carrying products featuring children’s cartoon characters:
Products ranging from Dora the Explorer frozen soybeans to Elmo juice boxes will be discontinued and replaced with organic alternatives in cartoon-free packaging.
Company CEO Scott Nash blogged last August about how his young daughter begged for a cereal she never tasted because of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” on the box, putting the store’s policy into motion. The company sent me this list of discontinued items, which includes numerous Earth’s Best products, along with a few other natural food companies.
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Posted in Child Nutrition, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children | Tagged: advertising regulation, McDonald's, public relations, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |
