Concerned about childhood obesity? The Media Isn't!

From Campaign for a Commerical Free Childhood:

Today, the Berkeley Media Studies Group and the Center for Digital Democracy released a new report that documents how major food, soft drink and fast food brands are deploying a panoply of new techniques--including cell phones, instant messaging, video games, user-generated video, and three-dimensional virtual worlds--to target children and adolescents, often under the radar of parents. The report - "Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age" - is available at http://www.digitalads.org/

The report is a wake-up call for policymakers and anyone concerned by the escalating epidemic of childhood obesity. Even as junk food marketers claim to be cleaning up their act, the food industry is exploiting the latest technologies to target children in new and insidious ways.
A coalition of advocacy groups - including CCFC -- submitted the report to the Federal Trade Commission today, calling on the agency to expand its investigation of food and beverage marketing to include the full of range of digital marketing to children and adolescents.

Examples cited in the report include:
To "create a compelling way to connect with the younger demographic," 600 McDonald's restaurants in California launched a mobile marketing campaign, urging young cell phone users to text-message to a special phone number to receive an instant electronic coupon for a free McFlurry dessert.

Coca-Cola's "My Coke Rewards" program offers special codes in its products that enable young people to access a website, where they can earn such rewards as downloadable ring tones and "amazing sports and entertainment experiences." This technique is part of a strategy for behavioral profiling, where marketers compile a detailed profile of each customer, including demographic data, purchasing behavior, responses to advertising messages, and even the extent and nature of social networks.

Food marketers are commercializing online communities by aggressively moving into MySpace and other social networking sites. One technique is to create "branded profiles" that invite children and teens to become "friends" with popular spokescharacters. "Welcome to the King's Court," beckons the Burger KingMySpace profile. "The virtual home of the Burger King. He's giving away free episodes of the Fox shows '24,' 'Pinks,' and 'First Friend.'"
Wendy's placed several "commercials masquerading as videos" on YouTube, specifically designed to attract "young consumers." In one viral video, "Molly Grows Up"--which generated more than 300,000 views--a young girl is shown ordering "her first 99-cent Junior Bacon cheeseburger and Frosty."

The Mars candy company enlisted the musical group Black Eyed Peas to make a series of "webisodes" called "Instant Def," in order to promote Snickers bars to teens, an example of brand-saturated environments that weave products seamlessly into interactive entertainment content.


To learn more, please visit http://www.digitalads.org/.


Thanks,
The Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=347609204&url_num=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.commercialfreechildhood.org%2F