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Cibbuano
Junk Food Ads Awards: McDonald's a Winner
October 12th 2006 06:39
Those of you who read my post Thinking of the Children: Junk Food Ads back in mid September may like to know some results of The 2006 Children's TV Food Advertising Awards as published in yesterday’s SMH.
The Pester Power Award goes to ads that cause children to annoy their parents and nag for the product they’ve seen on TV. And who did it go to this year…? McDonald’s! Surprise surprise. Macca’s is perfect for luring children in with their colourful toys from current kids movies. When Mum asks where the children want to go for dinner the kids will think back to the ads with the seemingly out-of-this-world toys and the seemingly ecstatic children playing with them. The burger and fries are just a bonus.
Other nominees for the Pester Power award included Hungry Jack's for its Superman Returns tumblers and Kellogg's Cereals for the ‘Win an XBox miniature game’ promotion.
Nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton announced the awards, and pointed out that most of the children’s advertisements on TV are for fast food and junk food. She belives that there is a direct relationhip between the number of food advertisements kids see and the rising levels of childhood obesity in Australia.
The awards also included a Smoke and Mirrors Award winner, which the SMH says “are for ads that cleverly disguise the low nutritional value of food to give the impression they are healthier than they really are.” This award was given to the Karicare Toddler Gold Formula, which promoted the idea that toddlers needed a substitute for cow's milk even though this formula is mostly derived from cow's milk and is high in sugar.
Other nominees in the Smokes and Mirrors category included SPC Fruit Chills and the Natural Confectionery Company Fruit Chews. I’m glad these companies were nominated as I can’t stand the fact that advertisers know that something is bad for you (e.g. in the “Natural Confectionery Company” Fruit Chews) but mask the high sugar content with the words ‘Natural’ and ‘Fruit’. And, without being too mean, the average aussie (and not just the kids - adults too) will be fooled into thinking that the product they are eating is in fact healthy for them.
So many people get sucked into this: “But these lollies are 99% fat free”, “Yeah, but look at the sugar content, it’s through the roof!”.
Also, Uncle Toby’s has recently retracted its marketing pull that their roll-ups are “made with 65% real fruit.” On the contrary, according to an SMH article in September, “there is no fresh fruit - or very little - in a fruit roll-up”. Hah! What do you know? Even if there was a respectable amount of fruit in a roll-up, the crap-load of sugar in it is enough to outweigh any nutritional value it ever had.
But it’s not all bad news, the Parent’s Choice Award is given to companies that promote healthy food fo children’s consumption. The winner was my personal favourite breakfast, Sanitarium Weetbix for its "Breakfast of the Socceroos" advertisement.
Image part of the GNU Free Documentation License
The Pester Power Award goes to ads that cause children to annoy their parents and nag for the product they’ve seen on TV. And who did it go to this year…? McDonald’s! Surprise surprise. Macca’s is perfect for luring children in with their colourful toys from current kids movies. When Mum asks where the children want to go for dinner the kids will think back to the ads with the seemingly out-of-this-world toys and the seemingly ecstatic children playing with them. The burger and fries are just a bonus.
Other nominees for the Pester Power award included Hungry Jack's for its Superman Returns tumblers and Kellogg's Cereals for the ‘Win an XBox miniature game’ promotion.
Nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton announced the awards, and pointed out that most of the children’s advertisements on TV are for fast food and junk food. She belives that there is a direct relationhip between the number of food advertisements kids see and the rising levels of childhood obesity in Australia.
The awards also included a Smoke and Mirrors Award winner, which the SMH says “are for ads that cleverly disguise the low nutritional value of food to give the impression they are healthier than they really are.” This award was given to the Karicare Toddler Gold Formula, which promoted the idea that toddlers needed a substitute for cow's milk even though this formula is mostly derived from cow's milk and is high in sugar.
Other nominees in the Smokes and Mirrors category included SPC Fruit Chills and the Natural Confectionery Company Fruit Chews. I’m glad these companies were nominated as I can’t stand the fact that advertisers know that something is bad for you (e.g. in the “Natural Confectionery Company” Fruit Chews) but mask the high sugar content with the words ‘Natural’ and ‘Fruit’. And, without being too mean, the average aussie (and not just the kids - adults too) will be fooled into thinking that the product they are eating is in fact healthy for them.
So many people get sucked into this: “But these lollies are 99% fat free”, “Yeah, but look at the sugar content, it’s through the roof!”.
Also, Uncle Toby’s has recently retracted its marketing pull that their roll-ups are “made with 65% real fruit.” On the contrary, according to an SMH article in September, “there is no fresh fruit - or very little - in a fruit roll-up”. Hah! What do you know? Even if there was a respectable amount of fruit in a roll-up, the crap-load of sugar in it is enough to outweigh any nutritional value it ever had.
But it’s not all bad news, the Parent’s Choice Award is given to companies that promote healthy food fo children’s consumption. The winner was my personal favourite breakfast, Sanitarium Weetbix for its "Breakfast of the Socceroos" advertisement.
Image part of the GNU Free Documentation License
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