In spite of a rapid growth in digital marketing, research on how it affects children’s health has failed to keep pace with changing industry practices. This chapter, part of Advances in Communication Research to Reduce Childhood Obesity, presents a conceptual framework for understanding how digital marketing differs from traditional forms of marketing and identifies challenges for researchers.
In the heat of a campaign, it can be easy to forget that advocacy is about more than winning a particular policy change. It’s about values and relationships — and that requires dialogue. In this discussion, Francisco (Pancho) Argüelles, executive director of the Living Hope Wheelchair Association, encourages us to step outside our comfort zones and learn how to open the space for conversation so that we can become better allies to communities struggling for justice.
Advocates work tirelessly for social change on a variety of issues. But their efforts may be thwarted by underlying negative attitudes toward government and a widespread misunderstanding of its role in creating a healthy, functioning society. As part of BMSG’s 20th anniversary series, Patrick Bresette, former program director for Public Works, explores how we can tackle this problem and build public support for a government dedicated to the common good.
Food companies use viral digital marketing tactics, which may be considered deceptive and in violation of state consumer protection laws, to induce children to share email addresses of their friends and spread brand advertising of unhealthy foods among their peers. This legal issue brief, prepared by the Public Health Advocacy Institute in collaboration with BMSG and the Center for Digital Democracy, explains the tactics being used and suggests ways they can be addressed, particularly under state law.
Cereal companies, the third biggest food marketer to children, are using sophisticated online marketing techniques to target kids with unhealthy products and get them to engage with brands in ways not possible through television advertising. In this study, BMSG’s Andrew Cheyne, Lori Dorfman and Eliana Bukofzer, along with the UConn Rudd Center‘s Jennifer Harris, explore cereal companies’ digital marketing tactics and implications for public health.
Although research suggests that healthy products can be profitable for the food industry, marketers continue to target children with ads for foods and beverages that are unhealthy, cheap and widely available. Such marketing is linked to overweight, obesity and related health problems. This brief report, prepared by Healthy Eating Research based on BMSG research, explains the scope of the problem and offers recommendations for improvement.
American children and adolescents remain exposed to a disproportionate amount of marketing for unhealthy foods and beverages, in spite of some progress by industry, government and schools to improve young people’s food environments. This report — a review of academic and industry literature on trends in food marketing to youth, as well as policy interventions — explains what this means for public health researchers and advocates looking to improve kids’ health.
In spite of the role that sugar-sweetened beverages play in chronic health problems, public health advocates face formidable challenges in arguing for a tax on them. In this article, BMSG’s Lori Dorfman explains the backdrop that makes passing a soda tax so difficult and what advocates can do to increase the public’s understanding of and support for such a solution.
Blogging can be a powerful communications tool for media advocacy. Whether you are just getting started or have been blogging for years, here are some tips and tricks to help your organization build and maintain a better blog.
Children in the U.S. continue to grow up in environments saturated by food and beverage marketing, the bulk of it for foods low in nutrients and high in calories, sugars, salt or fats. In spite of the threat this poses to kids’ health, the food industry has balked at adopting even voluntary guidelines to improve its marketing practices. As BMSG’s Lori Dorfman and CSPI’s Margo Wootan show in this article, addressing an issue of this magnitude will require an international commitment to healthy food marketing policies.
