The British Heart Foundation is launching an email petition, calling for a clampdown on online advertising to children amid claims that food companies are exploiting loopholes in the rules to ‘swamp’ children with unhealthy food messages.
Food companies – including Kellogg’s, Rowntree and Cadbury – have been at the forefront of setting up websites with games, cartoon characters and videos aimed at children as they can no longer advertise on TV. They have also been heavy adopters of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and even email children directly.
BHF policy manager Mubeen Bhutta said: “Like wolves in sheep’s clothing, junk food manufacturers are preying on children and targeting them with fun and games they know will hold their attention.
“Regulation protects our children from these cynical marketing tactics while they’re watching their favourite children’s TV programmes but there is no protection when they’re online.
“The marketeers must be rubbing their hands with glee because this loophole gives them carte blanche to reach eight in 10 children behind their parents’ backs.”
The report, from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and the Children’s Food Campaign (CFC), calls for tighter regulation. It said: “Companies are exploiting gaps in the regulations to target children online with promotions for products that cannot be advertised on children’s television.”
Online codes of conduct are more ‘vague’, and, “as a result, children continue to be swamped with commercial messages with one purpose: to persuade them to consume unhealthy products,” the report said.
Websites criticised in the report include those from Kellogg’s for its Krave cereal, Cheestrings, Nesquik, Sugar Puffs, Capri-Sun, Rowntree, Chupa Chups and Cadbury Buttons.
More than three quarters of the websites studied had high fat, sugar or salt products that were linked to similar pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook allows children to influence each other because they can ‘like’ a product leading to peer pressure and subtle messages that such products are fashionable. Researchers behind the report signed up to the Sugar Puffs website and received emails every week over a three-month period as well as the potential to send branded e-cards to friends.
Users were asked to seek parental permission if they were under 16, but children can simply tick the parental consent “verify” box.
Charlie Powell, campaigns director for the CFC, said: “By its failure to protect children from online junk food marketing, the Government is demonstrating complacency at a time when it should provide robust regulation to help reverse unacceptable levels of obesity in the UK.”
But the Food & Drink Federation has hit back, claiming the report was “highly selective”. Terry Jones, director of communications, added: “They have highlighted aspects of our members’ online marketing that support their agenda but consciously ignored the many other positive aspects that demonstrate the industry’s responsible approach.
“For example, the sites are clearly branded, there is no attempt to mislead consumers and parental interaction is encouraged. Advertising in the UK is well governed and rules have recently been revised to include online material.”
