Food Marketing Practices
Best Food Marketing Practices:
 | | July 2010 |
| The Vidalia Onion Committee partnered with DreamWorks for its “Shrek Forever After, Vidalias Forever Sweet” campaign, which includes use of Shrek characters on packaging, store displays, and the company website. The goal of the campaign is to make onions popular with children, and the Vidalia Committee believes this marketing effort has been successful. Demand for their medium-sized onions is up 30-35% this year. Meanwhile, parents are expressing their surprise and delight that their children are pestering them for the bags of onion and eating them. |
 | | April 2010 |
| NatureSweet has launched a video contest with Radio Disney to promote their Cherubs bite-sized tomatoes to youth. The talent contest lets children and teens submit videos of themselves singing to be voted on by the public. The winner will receive a trip to LA to meet AllStar Weekend, Disney’s new popular boy band. Radio Disney reaches 22.2 million youth, providing an incredible outlet for NatureSweet to communicate to youth that tomatoes are a sweet and healthy snack. |
 | | February 2010 |
| In support of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” Program, the dairy industry has released a new ad that presents fat-free milk as part of the solution to fight childhood obesity and encourages the consumption of water and skim milk instead of soda and sugar-sweetened beverages. Unlike other recent efforts by the dairy industry that pushed chocolate milk consumption, this ad focuses solely on increasing consumption of fat-free milk in addition to getting 60 minutes of physical activity a day. |
Worst Food Marketing Practices:
 | | June 2010 |
| Burger King has launched a massive promotion for “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” which includes an in-store game where players can scratch off characters on the game piece for a chance to win prizes, ranging from $100,000 and a 2011 Volvo to movie tickets and Burger King products. However, in order to receive these game pieces, customers must purchase a Burger King Value Meal. Customers who purchase a Value Meal receive one game piece while customers who purchase an upsized Value Meal receive two game pieces. The "Twilight" Saga is immensely popular among children, tweens, and teenagers who are obsessed with the film’s plot and characters. By offering these fans more "Twilight" game pieces with the larger meal, Burger King is intentionally promoting the consumption of more poor-nutrient food to youth. |
 | | May 2010 |
| Mead-Johnson is marketing its new Enfamil chocolate toddler formula to parents as the solution to ensuring that their “picky” toddlers get the nutrients they need. The company said the product is just a dietary supplement, but the package label boldly and deceptively proclaims that it is a toddler formula. This fortified product, which contains a needless amount of sugar and chocolate, competes with milk as a weaning food and misleads parents to believe it is a suitable replacement. |
 | | April 2010 |
| Post Cereal has introduced a new cereal to its Pebbles line-up: Cupcake Pebbles. Their website claims it is “The first cupcake cereal ever!” that is a “Party in a box!” The cereal, which they describe as wholesome, low-fat, and cholesterol-free, is high in sugar and contains no fiber. Post has introduced yet another nutritionally poor cereal targeted directly to children, rather than an actual healthy cereal product. |
