The internet is a-buzz with the recently released Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report, which revealed that the food industry spent $1.6 billion on advertising to children and teens in 2006. US Food Policy’s Parke Wilde came out heavy on Tuesday, when the study was released, and the Ethicurean’s Mark R. is sick about it. Interestingly, Ad Age chose to look at the bright side — apparently, earlier estimates had reached up to $10 billion.
It’s worth noting that small children can’t differentiate between commercials and regular programming, and that less than 1% of these ads were for healthy food. We’ll see what Congress (who requested the study to estimate the effectiveness of the current, voluntary program) does with the information, but in the meantime, concerned parents can check out CARU’s parent guide, and PBS offers a children’s guide to advertising called Don’t Buy It.
1 response so far ↓
1 Christine // Aug 4, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Good post on this topic. Wow, $500 million just on the marketing of soda. I’ve posted on marketers and children before and this is a topic I have strong opinions on.
I’ve seen the PBS site Don’t Buy It. Excellent site. I will check out the CARU site, sounds good. Great tip.
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