As a kid, I loved waking up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Some of those cereal commercials I watched during Looney Tunes are still seared in my brain. (Frosted Lucky Charms: They’re magically delicious!) Remember eating all the cereal in the box just to extract the plastic toy at the bottom? Well, it seems we’ve come a long way, baby.
The business of marketing to kids is tricky business — especially when it comes to food of questionable nutritional value. According to an article in the
Globe and Mail, major brands such as Coca-Cola, Kellogg, and Nestle have all made promises not to advertise certain food products to kids.
The internet, however, is a different kettle of fish. ‘Advergames’ allow kids to interact with brands in a way they love — online games. You can be a Pop Tart on skis, or fill up bottles of Dr. Pepper on a scoreboard. And playing a game can last a whole lot longer than a 30-second TV commercial. Kids — many of whom are just learning what it’s like to operate online — can’t necessarily distinguish the content from the advertising since they’re deliberately mashed together.
Even though many companies have signed on to the Canadian Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, the online space is still the Wild West, and our kids can access advergames coming out of the US. As moms, we’ve all experienced the tantrum when Junior doesn’t get the treat he wants from the grocery store. Seems if we don’t want to promote unhealthy foods in our home, we need to beware of online Kool Aid Man too. Ultimately, it’s up to us as parents to keep an eye on how our kids are spending time online.
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