essay
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abdulelah_alfawzan_r.docxAlfawzan3
Abdulelah Alfawzan
Dr, Mackin
English 1020
November 20 2014
Food Advertising and Marketing
Teenagers have been considered a major market force by the food and beverage industry in United States of America. Teenagers are becoming the sphere of influence for marketers because of their nature of expenditure, spending power, and their purchasing influence. Food marketers know that the youth have equal if not more spending power than adults. The teen hold purchasing influence and have the potential to be life long consumers. Food and beverage industry in the US has, increased the amount of advertising that aggressively and intensively target the youth trough multiple channels. Marketing efforts are now targeted towards teenagers. There are quit a number of channels that have been used to reach the youth in order to create awareness and teach them about new products in market. These channels include televisions, internet, brand logos on toys and products, in school marketing, kids club, product placement, promotions targeting the youth among others (Almas, 2012). Products predominantly high in sugar and fat have increasingly been advertised and this has had a major health epidemic in the US. Such advertisements are slowly moving from television into the classroom. New creative techniques are being explored by marketing companies to reach the target audience, the youth through promotions, incentive programs, and contests. This has resulted into the government of United States placing regulations on how much advertisements should be allowed during children programming.
Miguel Carriquiry and Bruce Babcock who represent considerable authority in moral hypothesis. They concentrate on life science issues: farming, creatures, and biotechnology For proper and effective child development and growth, nutrition is very important. Eating habits that are acquired during childhood always track into adulthood. This can contribute to long term chronic diseases risk. Multiple research has shown that the dietary intake pattern of teenagers in USA does not meet the national dietary goals; and are very poor. Many teenagers are eating foods away from home. The common foods taken away from home include soft drinks and frequent snacks. This has to more calories obtained from fat and added sugar. This has portrayed a shift over the past few decades. Snacking and constant use of soft drinks has led to childhood overweight and growing epidemic. This has resulted to increasing acquisition of obesity among the children and adolescents in the US. Childhood overweight and obesity is now a major health concern in the US. More than 15 percent of the youth and children in the US are overweight. This is twice the number of prevalence in 1980s. The situation has led to hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and cardiovascular risk factor. the American Academy of Pediatrics have reported that teens who view fast food advertisements are at a higher risk of becoming overweight than those who do not. According to this academy, a higher percentage of obese and overweight youth identified with fast food advertisements. Youth familiar with food advertisements are more than twice as likely as those who are less familiar to consume high calorie food brands. This research aims at marketing channels and food advertisement channels that target teenagers in United States of America. The research also examines the impact of these advertisements on eating behavior (Miguel & Babcock, 2007).
Gary Comstock is professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University where he conducts research on ethical questions in the biological sciences. Comstock discusses the ethical issues that raised in the food industry. The US food supply and marketing is heavily dependent on advertisements. The US food system is considered the second largest advertiser in the American economy with the first being the automotive industry. The food system advertises through billboards, televisions, newspapers, and radio among others. Food advertisement market is very large in the US because food captures a significant percentage of consumers spending especially with teenagers. Consumer views also tend to change very quickly because food is a repeat purchase item. Preference always begins before purchase behavior does. Marketing is heavily channeled towards the teenagers and is because of the desire to create brand preference and creation of awareness. There are two major factors that tend to relate to preference; the parents liking of a specific brand and the positive experience with the brand on the side of the children. The marketers knows very well that child’s first request for purchase is always at the supermarket at approximately 2 years of age and children have great purchase influence (Comstock, 2010).
Researches have shown that there is a strong connection between teen’s eating habit and fast food commercials. Teens who spend more than two hours watching commercial TV are prone to unhealthy foods like fast foods, snacks and sugary drinks than those who do not. There is increased consumption of fast foods as a result internet advertisements.
The teenagers are reached through marketing channels and these channels also influence the food product purchase behavior. As mentioned earlier, the techniques and channels include television advertisements, internet, in-school marketing, and kid’s club among others. The following are the channels used to market food and food related products to the youth.
In-school marketing is driven by the desire to generate product loyalty and increase sales. The use of public schools as a marketing venue has been on the rise in the past decade. The activities related to food and beverage in in-school marketing is sales of the products, advertisements made directly to the students, indirect advertisements, undertaking of marketing research with children.
Television is the largest single source media message to the youth and young children. The US food manufacturers and fast food restaurants allocate over 75% of their advertisements budgets to television. These because television viewing starts at an early age and the children have at least 2 hours of watching televisions everyday. The teenagers in low income minority set up tend to watch more television and they have the greater exposure to food advertisements. To the teens, the television is the largest source of food advertisements. According to a PLOS ONE research, McDonald and Burger King have a share of 70 percent and 29 percent respectively of 92 quick service restaurant meal advertisements on TV. TV watching is not the chief cause of obesity but rather the fast food commercial and this is a clear implication that fast food commercials greatly influence teen’s eating habits. This is because food is the most advertised item on the television.
These are standard marketing programs with names implying that they are clubs. They are developed by corporations with the aim of communicating and maintain existing relationships with the children. The members benefit from membership cards, direct mailings, holiday greetings, newsletters among others. (Comstock, 2010)
Brand awareness and preference starts at an early age with some companies marketing toys and products with brand logos to young children and preschoolers, this is done in order to develop and maintain positive relationships with children and promote awareness at an early age.
Online advertisements and promotions have increased considerably in the past decade. Online as a media of advertisement plays a key role in the lives of US children and teenagers. Many children have access to fast internet in the US making online advertisements very effective and efficient. The teen’s spend almost half of their day on the interne and the internet has become an intrinsic part of the teen’s daily life. The fast food manufacturers on the other hand arte taking advantage of this and are targeting teenagers with food commercials. The advertisers are continually targeting children, teens, black and Hispanic youth. This is according to the Yule Ruud Center for Food and Policy Obesity. An example is McDonald’s 365Black.com which is a website created to target minority groups. Another website from McDonald that targets Latino youth that are four times more likely to visit the site, is MeEncanta.com.
Early, Ralph is professor of food industry and Head of Department of Food Science and Agri-Food Supply Chain Management He concentrate on the decision making tool for the food industryThe youth and children have been the sphere of influence of marketers in the recent years. Food advertisers target greatly adolescents and children through a wide range of channels. The main goal of advertisements and marketing targeted to children is to create awareness, brand preference, loyalty, and food purchases by the youth. The advertisers have worked hard enough and managed to convince a large population of children and the youth into buying food and related products. This has contributed to the growing epidemic of childhood obesity and other food related sicknesses. I believe that marketing has a hand to play in influencing children and adolescent eating behavior and also body weight. However extensive research is still required to determine whether food marketing and advertisements contribute to increased risk of obesity and overweight among the adolescent and children (Early, 2006)
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Reference
Almas, Reidar. "Food Trust, Ethics and Safety in Risk Society." (2012).
Carriquiry, Miguel, and Bruce A. Babcock. "Reputations, market structure, and the choice of quality assurance systems in the food industry." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 89.1 (2007): 12-23.
Comstock, Gary. "Ethics and genetically modified foods." Food Ethics. Springer New York, 2010. 49-66.
Early, Ralph. "Food ethics: a decision making tool for the food industry?." International journal of food science & technology 37.4 (2006): 339-349.
Hobbs, B. C. (2008). Food poisoning and food hygiene. Food poisoning and food hygiene, (Edn 2).
Royle, Tony. "Realism or idealism? Corporate social responsibility and the employee stakeholder in the global fast‐food industry." Business Ethics: A European Review 14.1 (2005): 42-55.
