Advertising defines big. It is big business with big budgets spent by big firms. And it works. Clearly the billions of dollars spent on advertising campaigns every year must pay off; else why would firms pay up? Nor do you need to go far to see advertising power in action. Switch on your TVs, pick up your newspapers, drive by billboards or surf the Internet and messages will be bombarded at you whether you like it or not.
As adults we are free to choose how we spend our hard-earned cash. Advertising will undoubtedly affect the choices we make and the brands we recognize and trust, but the bottom line is that we are not being hypnotized or forcefully manipulated. However this is not the case for children.
I recently heard a psychoanalyst claim that we are breeding a generation of consumers. Young children want to own stuff. They recognize brands and exercise strong preferences. Children not only market products but are the targets of the most sophisticated and hard-selling campaigns. The result is that they are becoming more and more vocal in choosing the brands they will wear or the food they wish to eat. They may not manage the family budget but they know the meaning of pester power.
Combine this with the growing problem of childhood obesity and you can see why campaigners in Britain have lobbied for a ban on junk food advertising aimed at children.
Recent research has shown that advertising plays a significant role in shaping children’s food preferences. It is not a magic bullet, its effect must not be overstated, but it is there. In an ideal world, parents would be able to control the messages their children are exposed to. I know one such idealist who tried to do just that. Her young son was not allowed to watch television. Their household was strict on the food and drink they allowed through the door and banished high sugar drinks entirely. They did not own a car or a computer. They lived in a comfortable secluded idyll in the middle of the city. Yet to their consternation they found that one of the boy’s first words was “Coca-Cola”.
Advertising aimed at children is increasingly multifaceted and compulsive. Coca-Cola is one of the most successful brands of all time. It is also one of the bulldozers of advertising. From sponsoring immensely popular sport events such as the World Cup to the way it successfully places its vending machines in the most accessible spots, its marketing is pervasive and invasive. It is virtually impossible to spend a day in a city and not come across the coca-cola logo in some shape or form.
Or think of film tie-ins like that, which partnered McDonalds and Disney for the last ten years. How many parents were bullied into buying a happy meal just so that their child could have the must-have action figure accompanying Disney’s latest blockbuster? Indeed there was much talk last May when Disney did not renew their exclusive contract with the fast-food giant that this was due to a reluctance to be associated with junk food and its destructive effect on children’s health. Perhaps it was, but frankly it is doubtful that a company would relinquish the direct and extensive access to its client base that film-restaurant tie-ins gave it. The more plausible explanation is that both Disney and McDonalds were keen to be free of the chains of an exclusive contract in order to develop bigger and better marketing campaigns. Which is exactly what we see today. The new regulations, which will come into effect in the New Year in Britain, stop far short of an all-out ban on junk food advertising aimed at children. Though there is talk of banning junk food advertising in the children’s magazines and of introducing restrictions on such advertising on billboards and on the radio, for the moment only television advertising is concerned. Furthermore, the new regulations only ban ads for products high in salt, sugar or fat that are shown during programs which attract a high proportion of viewers aged under sixteen, not the blanket ban before the 9 p.m. watershed that campaigners had lobbied for. This means for instance that premiership football games will not be touched by the ban. Nor will it affect popular entertainment programs watched by children and adults alike.
The British ban also ignores one of the biggest growth areas for ads targeted at children: The Internet. The food and drink giants have been clever and inventive in marketing their brands directly to children through computer games, pop-ups, text-messaging, e-mails and websites, a trend which can only be expected to continue to grow in importance over the coming years.
Will banning junk food ads make any difference? Probably yes, a little. It will not solve the problem or make it disappear but it will make it easier for parents and educators to teach children to eat healthy which is just one step in beating the obesity pandemic which threatens society today.
The responsibility for ensuring that a child is fed a balanced and healthy diet lies undoubtedly with the child’s parents. But parents can only do so much. Obesity is a complex issue in which food intake is only one factor. Those who point an accusing finger at the parents of obese children clearly have never had to deal with a child with a predisposition to obesity. Even within the same families you can get wide disparities in body size; indeed I even know twins where one is obese and the other too skinny. Parents will often pull their hair out with worry but find themselves powerless to make a real difference. Similarly those who point the finger solely at the junk food industry are choosing to see only one small piece of the puzzle. It is a real problem and one without easy answers. However any policy which helps lessen the attraction of the unhealthy foods which children get hooked on can only be a good thing. Truth is parents the world over will be glad of anything that helps curb pester power.
