From the same issue of BizCom (18 Sept 2006), here is a snippet about the launch of a new junk snack: “The challenge associated with the recent launch of Bakers Froozels has been to capture the attention of the tween market … Included in the marketing mix is a viral marketing element, a 30" television commercial … and sampling activities in schools, shopping malls and at major intersections. The campaign's reach is expected to exceed 200 000 consumers and aims to position Froozels as the first biscuit with the 'attitude' of potato chips to be aimed specifically at this market”.
Marketing boasts about, and then denies in the same breath, its aims.
In his article, Chris insists, as he often does, that advertising is practically impotent and that parents are to blame. How so, when marketers are allowed to actively inject this perfect example of a junk food product into actual school hours? Every time something like this is raised marketers spout verbiage about it being solely the parents duty to control kids, as if the family unit exists in complete isolation and parents can monitor every aspect of their children’s interaction with the world. That is not only NOT the case, unfortunately, but would also be really short-sighted as kids do have to live in the world sooner or later anyway.
So who controls the marketers who consistently and blithely undermine our best efforts to raise balanced (in this case, well-nourished) kids, then? When we push for this type of regulation (because the industry does not self-regulate – as Chris Moerdyk himself has acknowledged before) marketing accuses us of “copping out”, but it’s actually just a form of the very “parental control” that marketing loves to bang on about us not exercising.
The aggressive marketing of these junk snacks is a huge issue, not only to do with obesity. Their daily consumption results in measurable classroom (and other) chaos because of the ways in which sugar, additives and other processed ingredients interact with brain function.
Child care professionals, like teachers and OTs, who deal with behavioural problems on a daily basis, know that the parents who are battling to work with them in mitigation face stiff competition from public space. We welcome without reservation any move against the promotion of foods which turn ordinary energetic kids into destructive antisocial monsters.
