Marketing to the littlest consumers

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To marketers, children aren’t just children -- they’re future loyal customers.

That has physicians, nurses, dietitians, obesity specialists and parents worried, especially as companies grow more forceful in trying to sell fattening, sugary foods to kids who have their own buying power and influence over their parents. Aggressive marketing was the subject of sessions at the recent Fifth Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference held this week at the Westin-Bonaventure in Los Angeles.

Schools are a hot spot for companies to go after children, said Victoria Berends, marketing director of California Project LEAN, a program dedicated to making policy and environmental changes around nutrition and physical activity. They are particularly vulnerable too, these days, as they struggle through budget cuts, often welcoming the extra revenue from sponsorships and sales.

‘Companies see this as an opportunity to make direct sales and cultivate brand loyalty,’ she said. ‘It’s an attractive place for marketers to have a message and draw attention to it.’

Logos for soft drinks appear on scoreboards and textbook covers, and less-than-healthy food is sold in cafeterias, school stores and through school fundraisers, all of it possibly having lasting effects on the students. ‘It does look like the school is endorsing the brand -- it’s like a seal of approval,’ said Berends, who advocates stronger policies in school districts limiting such marketing, as well as making the public more aware of blatant advertising.

Deborah Kaplan, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Maternal, Infant and Reproductive Health in New York City, focused part of the panel on efforts by baby formula companies to steer women away from breastfeeding. Some research studies have shown there may be a link between breastfeeding and a lower risk of obesity in later childhood.

‘Over the years,’ she said, ‘formula companies used the medical community as the sole means of advertising to mothers through things like sample packs.’ Handing those packs out, she said, constituted an implicit endorsement. And while Kaplan believes women should be able to choose what’s best for them and their children, she advocates policy changes and multi-level strategies that would tamp down direct marketing and encourage more women to breastfeed.

-- Jeannine Stein