First off, here's the list of speakers:
Moderator: Mary K. Engle, Associate Director, Advertising Practices, FTC
Dr. Dale Kunkel
Professor of Communication
University of Arizona
Dr. Margo Wootan
Director of Nutrition Policy
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Dr. Elizabeth Taylor Quilliam
Assistant Professor
Department of Advertising, Public Relations & Retailing
Michigan State University
Jennifer Anopolsky
Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility
The Walt Disney Company
Mary Sophos
Senior Vice President
Chief Government Affairs Officer
Grocery Manufacturers Association
Elaine D. Kolish
Vice President and Director
Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative
Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc.
I missed Dale's talk but got there in time for Margo Wootan from CSPI. I found one study she cited very telling: In 2005, prior to any self-regulatory initiatives, 90% of food ads on Nickelodeon were for junk. In 2009, after several years of implementation of a self-regulatory effort, 80% of food ads on Nickelodeon were for junk. So you can call that progress if you want, but it's piss poor and not good enough. She identified flaws in self-regulation in the variety of nutrition standards and the failure of company self-regulatory policies to cover all forms of marketing. For the nutrition standards, she noted that companies conveniently make loopholes for themselves, like a line of sugary cereals that has a weak standard for sugar but a very good standard in place for fat and sodium.
I was disappointed in her conclusion, that self-regulation CAN work, if the weaknesses she identified were corrected. She said companies have had years (decades even) to get this right and so far they haven't. But instead of calling for mandatory regulation now, she said companies should get 1-2 more years to make self-regulation work and then, at that point, she thinks we should go to Congress and ask for mandatory rules.
Next up was Elizabeth Taylor Quilliam from Michigan State University. She spoke about online games featuring food products. She said the games should have a clear message upfront stating that they were advertisements, they should have healthy lifestyle messaging, and they should feature "better-for-you" foods. (The term "better for you" will ALWAYS remind me of the line in Michele Simon's book Appetite for Profit where she asks "Better than what? Starvation?") She agreed with Margo that a lack of a standardized definition of media and the huge variety in nutrition standards makes self-regulation hard to assess (for parents as well as for academics and regulators).
In a study she cited that assessed these online games featuring food products, companies participating in the self-regulatory initiative were more likely to state upfront that their games were ads (63%). Overall, only 37% of games included healthy lifestyle messaging. Overall, only 30% of games were for "better-for-you" products only. And, judging by the study's nutrition standards, 83% of the foods in the games are unhealthy. Most telling of all was the comparison of foods in games by companies in the self-regulatory initiative and non-participating companies' games. Initiative companies had healthy foods in just under 12% of games, whereas non-participating companies had healthy foods in about 1/3 of games. By this measure, self-regulation is NOT working at all.
Next up came Jennifer Anopolsky from Walt Disney. Disney makes a killing from using their characters and marketing channels to sell food. In 2006, Disney put in place a self-regulatory effort to associate their brands and characters with healthier and more nutritious foods. They set up guidelines based on the USDA's dietary guidelines, and they set limits on fat, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar per serving. They also set a rule for 0g transfats (which, as we know, really means less than 0.5g transfats per serving). She said that now, 85% of Disney branded foods meet these guidelines and the remaining 15% are for special occasions like birthday cakes and seasonal sweets. And, in 2009, Disney sold over $500mil in fresh fruits and vegetables in the U.S. She went on to say more, but I don't find it terribly interesting unless there was some independent voice who was verifying the facts she cited. Ditto on the other speakers representing corporate interests. If, in fact, Disney has hit upon some great way to improve food advertising to kids (or food actually consumed by kids) then great - we ought to have other companies or even the U.S. government adopt such a program. But let's have an independent source, not Disney, make the judgment on whether Disney's guidelines actually work. Clearly, when the independent speakers on the panels did studies, they came up with some less rosy results.
All in all, I am not a fan of using cartoon characters to sell food - even healthy food. The message we should be giving to children is NOT that they should choose their foods based on endorsements by their favorite characters. Sesame Street does a pretty nice job with this actually. One of their online games tells children to eat the rainbow. Children learn their colors by categorizing vegetables. They need to pick out one vegetable for every single color in the rainbow as Cookie Monster narrates and tells why each veggie is great and why you should eat the rainbow every day. My favorite part is when you select eggplant and Cookie Monster tells you that there's a food made from eggplant called Baba Ghanoush. Then he starts chanting "Baba GhanOUSH! Baba GhanOUSH!" But something tells me that such a game won't be appearing on McWorld any time soon, and even if it does, it would be accompanied by plenty of ads and messaging for burgers, fries, and Coke. For that matter, even if McDonald's DID put all healthy messaging on their website and in their online games, we know what they sell and it ain't healthy food.
Last, I do not think self-regulatory efforts are a good idea. As noted in the panel today, not every company selling food actually participates, and the self-regulatory efforts don't always work. And even if a company DOES decide to participate, there's no enforcement mechanism. The self-regulatory efforts also lack standardization, allowing companies loopholes wide enough to drive a truck through. Clearly, the only answer to such problems is mandatory government regulation on advertising to kids. |
