Big Brands to Revamp Ads Aimed at Kids

July 18, 2007 — -- Major brands including Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonald's will announce today sweeping plans to revamp how they advertise to children in response to an initiative proposed last fall by the Council of Better Business Bureaus to stem childhood obesity.Marketers spend about $1 billion annually to pitch food and beverage products to children. The council has signed up 11 companies representing about two-third of all ad dollars to develop "pledges" to stop advertising unhealthy products to kids. Cadbury Adams, Campbell Soup (CPB), Coca-Cola, General Mills (GIS), Hershey (HSY), Kellogg (K), Kraft Foods(KFT), Mars, McDonald's, Pepsi and Unilever (UL) signed on last fall.

The voluntary measures will go into effect by the end of 2008 and include an end to national advertising of certain products altogether, more ads for products that meet certain federal nutritional guidelines and a cut in third-party licensed characters that appeal to children.

McDonald's for instance, says that all its national ads directed at children under 12 will promote meals that have "no more than 600 calories, no more than 35% of calories from fat, 10% of calories from saturated fat and 35% total sugar by weight."

Companies were under pressure to develop voluntary guidelines following Federal Trade Commission hearings in 2005 on advertising and childhood obesity.

Details of specific pledges will be released today at a joint forum: Weighing In: A Check-Up on Marketing, Self-Regulation and Childhood Obesity in Washington.

"All of the pledges go significantly beyond the minimum criteria," says C. Lee Peeler, CBBB's vice president, national advertising and CEO of the National Advertising Review. "This is the first time that the food and beverage advertising industry has said, 'We're going to apply nutritional criteria to the foods we advertise to kids under 12.' "

Each year, the council will report on how advertiser pledges are faring. If companies fail to deliver what they promise, they could face Federal Trade Commission scrutiny and penalties.

In 2003, Kraft began making hundreds of its products healthier and limiting its pitches to kids. Its Sensible Solutions line, which cut fat and calories, is growing twice as fast as other Kraft products and will be the only products advertised to kids. "Good nutrition is good for people, and it's also good for business," says Lance Friedmann, senior vice president, health and wellness.

But health advocates say the new guidelines aren't good enough.

Marketers are "running scared from the threat of lawsuits and increasingly negative public relations," says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. While the guidelines are "a good move in the right direction, the risk is that it stops here," he says.