|
|
|
One of the Adman's favourite ways to guarantee lots of sales is to catch children young. The younger the better - then they'll have more years in which to buy his products! Here are just a few examples of how food companies target very young children. The Teletubbies sell food to toddlers
Trouble is, little children who like the Teletubbies are too young to know that these foods aren't very healthy. They just see the pictures on the packets, point to them in the supermarket, and ask their mums to buy them. They probably don't even know what sort of food is in the packet. In 2003, a group of parents got so annoyed with the BBC for putting pictures of Teletubbies and Tweenies onto unhealthy foods, they wrote to the BBC asking them to stop promoting unhealthy food to little children in this way. The BBC conducted some research and talked to experts in child health and nutrition. In 2004 the BBC decided to use Teletubbies, Tweenies and Fimbles characters only on healthy foods. A victory for toddlers!
Many kids' meals in fast food restaurants come with a free toy. Barbie is shown here wearing an apron from a fast-food restaurant. She has also been spotted serving branded plastic pizzas to her boyfriend Ken! However, Barbie is certainly not the only toy who helps to sell food like chips, burgers and pizza to kids. This is a list of just some of the characters, toys and films which have helped to sell fast food to children and young people in recent years.
Toys are made in the shape of branded food products
Some food and toy manufacturers have now realised that this could also be a good way of getting young children familiar with food brands. So nowadays, some manufacturers make toys in the shape of branded food products. Here are two examples. In the purple box (bought in 2005) is a big set of plastic food - tins, packets and bottles, all with familiar brands on the labels.
This picture shows a set of fast-food toys (also bought in 2005), containing 34 separate pieces. Funnily enough, out of these 34 pieces, only three are healthier food items - a plastic slice of tomato, a lettuce leaf and some cucumber. The rest of the set is stuff like burgers, chips, cookies and ice cream. However, the toy-maker has found plenty of room for branding. One fast-food company's logo appears at least 20 times in the picture (the particular logo has been edited out here, so that you can't see the real brand. The point is that lots of different companies use this method to promote their products to young children).
Children's books are used to market sweets
Some food advertisers now use these books to encourage children to become familiar with their sweets brands. Some books encourage children to put sweets on top of the pictures and then count them, one by one. The book shown in the picture helps young children to learn to count to 100. But look at the blobs on the page. Each one of them is a branded sweet. The picture has been changed slightly so that you can't see which brand it is. The point is, lots of different companies use this method to promote sweets and sugary foods to young children.
Click here to download activity sheets on the subject of food marketing.
|
The
BBC is a TV company that shows the Teletubbies. They used to make money
by selling pictures of Teletubbies and Tweenies to appear on the food
packages of food like burgers and chips, custard cream biscuits and crisps.
They don't any more.
Toys
are used to sell fast food
For
hundreds of years, young children have enjoyed copying grown-ups by pretending
to cook food using toy pots and pans and model food. 
When
little children learn to read and count, they use big books with simple
pictures, and friendly characters who encourage them to enjoy learning.
