News

Study shows improvements in food advertising to kids

December 14, 2011

The Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) launched the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) five years ago with 10 charter companies committing to limit what foods they market to children under the age of 12.

Earlier this week, the initiative's annual report provided a five-year retrospect on the progress since its launch. The report noted there was excellent compliance with the participants' commitments to advertise to children only products meeting meaningful nutrition criteria or not to engage in child-directed advertising.

"Thanks to CFBAI's participants, kids now see ads for a wide variety of healthier products – including cereals, crackers, yogurts, soups, snacks and meals – that have less sugar, sodium and fat, and are more nutritious," said Elaine D. Kolish, CBBB vice president and director of CFBAI. "These days, children are regularly seeing ads for products that include, for example, whole grains."

The CFBAI has expanded the scope of the program to cover new and emerging media, such as child-directed ads on smart phones and ads on children's video games and DVDs. Participation also has grown to 17 companies, which represent the vast majority of food and beverage advertising to children.

"The companies that participate in the CFBAI have made major changes in their business practices since the program was launched," Kolish said. "Under self regulation, they've significantly improved the products in child-directed ads in both traditional and new media, none are advertising to kids in elementary schools, and none are doing product placement in child-directed entertainment or editorial content."

Its most significant advance in 2011 was the issuance of new CFBAI category-specific uniform nutrition criteria. "The new criteria build on achieving product improvements without sacrificing taste, which any parent will tell you is more than half the battle," Kolish said.

The new uniform nutrition criteria established limits on calories, saturated fat, transfat, sodium and sugars for 10 product categories, and included requirements for nutrition components to encourage, such as vegetables, fruit, low-fat dairy, whole grains, and essential vitamins and minerals.

The new criteria require participants to improve many products they currently advertise to children ? products that already meet meaningful nutrition standards ? if they wish to continue advertising them after these criteria go into effect on Dec. 31, 2013.

Among the 17 participants in the initiative are Burger King Corp., The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald's USA and PepsiCo Inc.

Children's nutrition has been in the spotlight all year, with many QSRs rolling out healthier kids' meal options, including McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Popeyes, Arby's and Whataburger.

The focus on children's nutrition is predicted to accelerate into 2012.

Read more about marketing initiatives.