Harris, a former international marketing executive for American Express with a doctorate in social psychology, is responsible for the Rudd Center’s research initiatives to understand the extent and impact of children’s exposure to food advertising.
They have gone to the website, they are engaging with it, and that’s what leads us to believe they may be more impacted by it.” Says Harris: “In the case of the Internet, the child is not just passively viewing advertising.
(Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity Photo) Jennifer Harris, senior research scientist and director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center and research scientist at UConn’s Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention. Children are being lured to corporate websites to play games like “Fruity Cheerios Bumper Boats” and “Oreo Double Stuff Race.” While many of the sites contain a disclaimer – ”Hey Kids: This is Advertising!” – the print is small and often hard to find. Unlike 30-second ads on TV, the videos and branded games posted on digital media are meant to engage children for an extended amount of time. It may be natural for the food and beverage companies to go where their customers are, but Harris worries about the impact this new wave of advertising is having on younger children, who are particularly susceptible to the subliminal messages the advertisements promote. They are happening wherever your child is, and it’s really difficult for a parent to monitor that,” says Jennifer Harris, a senior research scientist and director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center and research scientist at UConn’s Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention. “These advertisements are not just happening in your home anymore. The most popular site, (hosted by General Mills and since taken down), averaged 284,000 unique child visitors each month. In 2009, approximately 1.2 million children ages 6 to 11 visited food company websites that contained games. Since 2012, adolescents viewed on average 16.5 food ads per day on TV, an increase of 25 percent compared to 2007.Įxposure to candy ads more than doubled for children and adolescents from 2007 to 2013, an increase of 270 ads viewed per year by children and an additional 535 ads for adolescents. Since 2007, food and beverage ads viewed by children has increased by 8 percent, averaging 13.1 ads per day in 2013. The disclaimer ‘Hey Kids, This is Advertising’ is in small print.Īmerican food and beverage manufacturers are turning to digital media and mobile devices to encourage children to like their products, opening up a new front in the nation’s war on obesity.Ĭompanies like Coca-Cola, General Mills, and McDonald’s are using social media sites such as Facebook, online videos, and cartoon-based “advergames” to promote their brands to a new generation of children who are comfortable accessing the Internet using a smartphone, tablet, or other handheld device. Companies are turning to social media sites and ‘advergames’ to promote their products to children. The move will allow Rudd faculty to expand their work and build new collaborations with UConn experts on nutrition, public policy, psychology, agriculture, economics, and obesity.Įvery Wednesday throughout this semester, read about the cutting-edge work spearheaded by UConn and Rudd investigators. In January, as one of the first major initiatives of the Academic Vision, the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity will move to UConn from Yale University.
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