Pitching Food to Children

[Guest guest]

The New York Times, August 3, 2003

If You Pitch It, They Will Eat

By DAVID BARBOZA

 

THE McDonald's Corporation wants to be everywhere that children are. So besides

operating 13,602 restaurants in the United States, it has plastered its golden

arches on Barbie dolls, video games, book jackets and

even theme parks.

 

McDonald's calls this promotion and brand extension. But, a growing number of

nutritionists call it a blitzkrieg that perverts children's eating habits and

sets them on a path to obesity.

 

Marketing fast food, snacks and beverages to children is at least as old as

Ronald McDonald himself. What's new, critics say, is the scope and intensity of

the assault. Big food makers like McDonald's and Kraft Foods Inc. are finding

every imaginable way to put their names in front of children. And they're

spending more than ever - $15 billion last year, compared with $12.5 billion in

1998, according to research conducted at Texas A & M University in College

Station.

 

" What really changed over the last decade is the proliferation of electronic

media, " says Susan Linn, a psychologist who studies children's marketing at

Harvard's Judge Baker Children's Center. " It used to just be Saturday-morning

television. Now it's Nickelodeon, movies, video games, the Internet and even

marketing in schools. "

 

Product tie-ins are everywhere. There are SpongeBob SquarePants Popsicles, Oreo

Cookie preschool counting books and Keebler's Scooby Doo Cookies. There is even

a Play-Doh Lunchables play set.

 

While the companies view these as harmless promotional pitches, lawyers are

threatening a wave of obesity-related class-action lawsuits. Legislators are

pressing to lock food companies out of school cafeterias. And, some of the

fiercest critics are calling for an outright ban on all food advertising aimed

at children.

 

" The problem of obesity is so staggering, so out of control, that we have to do

something, " says Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School

of Public Health. " The vast majority of what they sell is junk, " Mr. Willett

says of the big food makers. " How often do you see fruits and vegetables

marketed? "

 

The increase in food marketing to children has closely tracked their increase in

weight. Since 1980, the number of obese children, has more than doubled to 16

percent, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

School districts in New York and Los Angeles have responded by banning the sale

of sugary beverages and snacks in school vending machines.

 

Most big food companies, despite some promises to offer healthier foods and in

some cases to limit marketing in schools, deny that they are to blame for the

epidemic of excess weight. They insist that sedentary behavior, a lack of

exercise and poor supervision and eating habits are responsible.

 

Food companies say their commercials don't encourage overeating, that the foods

they advertise are meant to be " part of a balanced diet, " and that some foods

are meant to be only occasional treats.

 

" We talk about offering carrot sticks, " says Karlin Linhardt, the director of

youth marketing at McDonald's. " And we have parents come in and say, We offer

them carrot sticks at home. When we come to McDonald's we want a treat, french

fries. "

 

Why would companies take aim at children so energetically? Because they,

increasingly, are where the money is.

 

" It's the largest market there is, " says James McNeal, a professor of marketing

at Texas A & M and an authority on marketing to children. " Kids 4 to 12 spend on

their own wants and needs about $30 billion a year. But their influence on what

their parents spend is $600 billion. That's blue sky. "

 

In toy stores, children can become accustomed to food brands early by buying a

Hostess bake set, Barbie's Pizza Hut play set or Fisher-Price's Oreo Matchin'

Middles game. And, for budding math whizzes, there is a series of books from

Hershey's Kisses on addition, subtraction and fractions.

 

Schools are also a major marketing site. With many school districts facing

budget shortfalls, a quick solution has come from offering more profitable fast

food from outlets like McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut.

 

Some schools have contracts to sell fast food; others have special days allotted

for fast food. The Skinner Montessori school in Vancouver, Wash., for instance,

has " McDonald's Wednesdays " and " KFC Fridays. " There are McDonald's McTeacher's

Nights in Jefferson City, Mo., and Pizza Hut Days in Garden City, Kan. According

to a survey by the C.D.C., about 20 percent of the nation's schools now offer

brand-name fast food.

 

Vending machines now dominate school corridors. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have

" pouring rights " contracts in hundreds of schools nationwide.

 

Lawyers and consumer advocates have harshly criticized educators for

" commercializing the schools " and sending poor dietary messages to children.

 

" It seems very clear it's a breach of duty, " says John Banzhaf, a professor of

law at George Washington University in Washington and one of the lawyers

pressing for class-action lawsuits against big food companies. " Schools get paid

a kickback for every sugary soft drink or burger sold. "

 

Some food companies heatedly defend their promotions, and their products. " I

think our communication with children is appropriate; we're not shoving it down

their throat, " says Ken Barun, director of healthy lifestyles at McDonald's,

adding, " To make a general statement that McDonald's food is unhealthy is

wrong. "

 

Industry officials concur. " These foods and beverages are safe, and consumers -

in some cases parents - have to be the one to make the decisions about how much

should be eaten, " says Gene Grabowski, a spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers

of America, which represents the nation's biggest food companies. " The industry

is trying very hard to be responsible in the way it markets these foods. "

 

Still, legislators and school districts are rethinking school marketing. There

are more than 30 bills before state legislatures around the country proposing to

ban certain snacks and beverages from school vending machines, according to the

Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University in Tempe.

 

Television, of course, remains the most powerful medium for selling to children.

These days there is no shortage of advertising opportunities with the emergence

of the Walt Disney Company's Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, which is owned by

Viacom, and the Cartoon Network, a unit of AOL Time Warner's Turner

Broadcasting.

 

Marketers know that children love animals and cartoon characters, and industry

observers say they have used that knowledge not just to create new shows, but to

produce a new generation of animated pitchmen.

 

Some critics say children often can't differentiate the programs from the

commercials and that food companies and producers of children's shows have

helped blur the line by creating characters that leap back and forth, from

pitchman to program character.

 

SpongeBob SquarePants has his own show. But he also sells Kraft Macaroni &

Cheese, Popsicles, Kleenex, DVD's, skateboards, fruit snacks and dozens of other

products.

 

In fact, a series of big marketing alliances has bound food companies and

television show producers like never before. Disney, for instance, has teamed up

with McDonald's on movies and product tie-ins. Disney and Kellogg collaborate on

a line of cereals that includes Disney Chocolate Mud & Bugs. And Nickelodeon

has struck marketing deals with the Quaker Oats Company and General Mills Inc.

 

During Nickelodeon's " SpongeBob SquarePants " 30-minute cartoon last week, more

than half the commercials were about food. The spots showed that children who

consume " Go-gurt, " the new yogurt-on-the-go, loved skateboards and danced on the

walls.

 

A child who poured milk on his Post Honey Comb cereal was transformed into the

raffish Honey Comb monster named the Craver. Children walked into walls after

seeing other youngsters' tongues tattooed with Betty Crocker's Fruit Roll-Ups.

And two others reveled in having so much sugar on their Kellogg's Cinammon

Krunchers cereal that even the tidal wave of milk that washed over their

treehouse couldn't wipe off the sugary flavor.

 

But do these commercials really resonate with children? Marketing experts say

yes; the children do, too.

 

Nicky Greenberg, who is 6 and lives with her parents in Lower Manhattan, often

spends her afternoons watching Nickelodeon. She can sing the theme song from

" SpongeBob SquarePants, " and she says her parents buy her Kellogg's Cinnamon

Toast Crunch because she loves the commercials.

 

" On the commercial, " she says, " there's a captain that goes on a submarine, and

there's an octopus, and three kids. And then the girl says, `Just taste this

pirate.' And the pirate says, `Ayyy, Yummy!' "

 

In private, some company executives complain that when parents go to the grocery

store they don't buy the healthy products that are offered. Professor McNeal at

Texas A & M says the companies are a scapegoat.

 

The big food companies say they follow a set of guidelines for television

advertising enforced by the Children's Advertising Review Unit, which was set up

and financed by advertisers to regulate themselves.

 

The companies say their ads don't show overeating or make false health claims.

Officials at the Children's Advertising Review Unit acknowledge that they don't

look at the collective message food companies send to children. " We're not

nutritionists, " says Elizabeth Lascoutx, a spokeswoman for the unit. " We're not

in the position to say this food item cannot be part of a healthy diet. "

 

Sensing a backlash to advertising and promotion, especially in schools, Kraft

said last month that it would end all in-school marketing efforts. And General

Mills, the maker of Cheerios, says that in-school marketing is wrong.

 

Some marketing deals have come under pressure. For example, last week, the

British Broadcasting Corporation said it would no longer allow its children's

television characters to be used in fast-food sponsorships with companies like

McDonald's after consumer groups criticized the public broadcaster for helping

promote junk food.

 

Some companies deny that they even market to children. Both Coke and Pepsi

insist that they direct their products only to teenagers and adults. And Yum

Brands, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, says it does not market

to children or have operations in schools.

 

But sometimes the evidence would seem to contradict those statements. Coke

signed a multimillion-dollar global marketing deal tied to the Harry Potter

character in 2001, and many schools, like the one in Garden City, Kan., have

contracts to serve food from Pizza Hut.

 

Full story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/business/yourmoney/03KIDS.html?pagewanted