Marketing Sugary Cereals to Children in the Digital Age: A Content Analysis of 17 Child-Targeted Websites

Abstract

The Institute of Medicine has warned of the harm of food marketing to children from television to new media channels such as the Internet. The authors identified and analyzed the techniques used to engage children on websites from cereal companies—the third largest food marketer to children. The authors found that top breakfast cereal manufacturers maintain child-oriented websites, using strategies unique to the Internet to capture and maintain children's attention. These include branded engagement techniques such as advergames, videos, site registration, and viral marketing, including inviting friends to join the site. The authors found 3 progressive levels of telepresence on child-targeted cereal websites: sites with more than 1 engaging feature, multiple techniques present on individual pages, and the construction of a virtual world. Using Internet traffic data, the authors confirm that these techniques work: cereal marketers reach children online with lengthier and more sophisticated engagements than are possible with traditional, passive media such as television advertisements or product packaging. Despite the cereal manufacturer's self-regulatory pledge to improve their marketing to children, their marketing practices exploit children's susceptibility to advertising by almost exclusively promoting high-sugar cereals using deeply engaging techniques.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Priscilla Gonzalez, Hannah Sheehy, and Kate Stearns for their research assistance on this project. This work was funded by the Yale Rudd Center. In the Yale Rudd Center's Cereal FACTS report, the authors presented basic information on child-oriented cereal websites (Harris, Schwartz, and Brownell, 2009). In this article, the authors provide detailed description and analysis of the engagement techniques they found on child-targeted cereal websites. This research was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Notes

*Source: comScore Media Metrix Key Measures Report (January 2008–March 2009).

**The Institute Of Medicine's 2007 report on school nutrition standards for foods served to children stipulated that no more than 35% of calories should come from sugar. Bold values in this row indicate that the cereal promoted on the website had more sugar than allowed by the Institute Of Medicine's standard. N/A = nutritional content could not be assessed on sites that promoted more than one cereal.

***This measure was calculated by adding total unique visitors reported each month from January 2008 through March 2009 for each demographic group divided by the number of months for which these data were available for each website (comScore, 2009, Media Metrix Suite: http://comscore.com/About_comScore/Methodology/Media_Metrix_360_Hybrid_Measurement). Data are missing either because there were not enough visitors among the comScore panel to extrapolate population-level traffic or because there was not a unique URL and thus traffic to the site was not independent of the parent site (e.g., www.sillyrabbit.millsberry.com).

¹Although the Flintstones often acted as spokes-characters for the Fruity or Cocoa Pebbles cereals, they were coded as licensed characters because their existence on the animated television series precedes the development of those branded cereal products.

²Current pledges can be found at http://www.bbb.org/us/children-food-beverage-advertisinginitiative.

³Although the Flintstones often acted as spokes-characters for the Fruity or Cocoa Pebbles cereals, they were coded as licensed characters because their existence on the animated television series precedes the development of those branded cereal products.

*Cheerios, Chex, Choose Breakfast, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, Corn Pops, Frosted Mini Wheats, Honey Nut Cheerios.

**Apple Jacks Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Honeycomb, Lucky Charms, Reeses Puffs, Trix.

***Millsberry, Postopia.