Which says Junk food brands still target kids online

Julian Sharpe | 2:21 pm | July 16, 2008 | News, Social Media

Junk food brands are continuing to target children online and via mobile phones this is despite growing concerns about childhood obesity, a new report from Which claims.

Various media sources including Social networking, SMS and viral promotions were all named in the report cleverly titled ‘Food Fables - The Second Sitting’ as more methods are used to target children, this is despite 88% of consumers saying brands need to be more responsible.

The main culprits have been identified as Bebo, MySpace and YouTube as the main channels for promotions and competitions from junk food brands.

The report also highlighted Cadbury, Mars and Fanta as examples of brands, which used ‘complex’ brand sites and social networks to pick out young people. Mobile was also highlighted as a further channel exploited by brands to target children, through mobile promotions and WAP sites.

Its not all bad news as Which also credited brands such as Kellogg’s, Nestle and Weetabix for reducing or closing down sites which previously targeted children.

However the advertiser body ISBA has criticised the report claiming it is “seriously misleading” and accused Which of wrongly highlighting practices aimed at people aged over 16, and not young teens.

Ian Twinn, public affairs director at ISBA, said, “Any under-16s seeing these ads will have had to lie about their age.”

“The report simply misses the point. Where obesity is concerned, advertising is not the issue. Tackling the problem needs to involve a much wider range of factors such as parental responsibility, healthy diets and activity levels.”

ISBA said online ads are subject to the same degree of regulation as broadcast and print ads