The Role of Ethics in Food and Beverage Marketing to Children

Abstract

Few doubt that childhood obesity is a serious threat to our nation’s health; however, there is a huge debate over who is responsible and what should be done. One aspect of the debate involves significant disagreement over food and beverage marketing and advertising targeting children (Research, 2011, Williams, 2005). What does ethical and responsible food and beverage marketing to children look like? Depending on where one goes to find the answer, either to food and beverage companies (and the supporting marketing communications industry), or to the public health community, the answer may vary dramatically. To some extent, the degree to which certain marketing tactics are considered unethical may be in the eye of the beholder. What might be considered good business practice by some marketers might be considered bad ethics by the public health community. In this chapter, we will attempt to highlight the intricacies of these complicated issues by examining perceptions of different groups of the ethics of marketing food and beverage products to children. As such, the purpose of the chapter is not to establish or identify “right” or “wrong” practices, or “ethical” or “unethical” behavior. Our focus will be on stepping back as academic marketing communications researchers and applying our lenses to elucidate more fully the complexities of this often heated debate over issues of the ethics of food and beverage marketing to children. In doing so, we will first review and examine the self-regulatory efforts of the food and beverage industry during the past few years. We will then report the findings of two studies that we conducted. The first study uses in-depth interviews to investigate the perspectives of the various parties engaged in the debate regarding ethics and food and beverage marketing—the industry, the public health community, and the academic community. The second study is an analysis of websites of marketing communication associations regarding content related to targeting children generally and specific issues related to childhood obesity or children’s health. We conclude with a discussion of our findings.

Appendices

Appendix A, Interview Protocol

• 1. Every industry faces ethical issues in general and also ethical issues specific to the industry. What do you see as issues that could pose ethical issues in food marketing?

  • What role do you think that food marketing plays in the obesity crisis?

• 2. How should we think about targeting children in this context?

  • How should we think about the age of the child?

  • Are the ethical issues related to adolescents more like those related to adults or more like those related to children?

  • There has been a debate in the media about Ronald McDonald as the spokesperson for McDonald’s? How should we think about issues like this?

  • There has been debate about giving away toys with fast food. How should we think about this issue?

• 3. How should we think about mass media?

  • Some people worry about what they refer to as the unintended consequences related to mass media advertising? How should we think about these issues?

• 4. How should we think about ethical issues related to food advertising in schools?

  • Are there different issues for elementary schools vs. middle schools vs. high schools?

• 5. How should we think ethical issues related to food marketing and electronic media?

  • Privacy?

  • Social media?

• 6. How does one go about changing the culture of unhealthy snacking vis a vis the obesity epidemic?

  Consumers

  • Marketers always value consumer choice. Is there ever a point when consumer choice gets outweighed by broader issues?

  • How does one retrain the American consumer, who likes salty, fatty, sugary snacks?

  Food Companies

  • What role should the food companies play? What could keep food companies from addressing the obesity crisis as they should?

  • Should food companies be cast as moral pariahs like the tobacco companies were?

  Public Health Community

  • What role should the public health community play? What could keep the public health community from addressing the obesity crisis as it should?

  Academic Community

  • What role should academics play? What could keep academics from addressing the obesity crisis as they should?

• 7. What would make the self-regulatory efforts of the food industry more effective?

  • What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of self-regulation?

  • What could be done to keep politics from derailing this effort

Appendix B, Industry Associations

Marketing

• American Marketing Association (http://www.marketingpower.com/Pages/default.aspx)

• Direct Marketing Association (http://www.the-dma.org/index.php)

• Business Marketing Association (http://www.marketing.org)

• Promotion Marketing Association (http://www.pmalink.org/)

• eMarketing Association (http://www.emarketingassociation.com/)

• Mobile Marketing Association (http://mmaglobal.com/main)

• Word of Mouth Marketing Association (http://womma.org/main/)

• Internet Marketing Association (http://www.imanetwork.org/)

• International Internet Marketing Association (http://www.iimaonline.org/)

• The Web Marketing Association (http://www.webmarketingassociation.org/)

Advertising

• American Association of Advertising Agencies (http://www2.aaaa.org/Portal/Pages/default.aspx)

• International Advertising Association (http://www.iaaglobal.org/)

• American Advertising Federation (http://www.aaf.org/)

• Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (http://www.rama-nrf.org/)

• Outdoor Advertising Association of America (http://www.oaaa.org/)

• Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (http://www.ahaa.org/index.htm)

• Indoor Billboard Advertising Association (http://www.indooradvertising.org/)

• Asian American Advertising Federation (http://www.3af.org/)

• Interactive Advertising Bureau (http://www.iab.net/)

Public Relations

• Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/)

• International Public Relations Associations (http://www.ipra.org/)

• Institute for Public Relations (http://www.instituteforpr.org/)