Digital Fast Food Nation

Food and beverage marketing has had quite the makeover.  Digital marketers have taken their new set of online and social media marketing tools and painted the otherwise ugly fast food, snack, and soft drink industries a new color.  This transformation has allowed these companies to target children and adolescents.  Digital marketing has afforded these companies a greater understanding of young people's behavior, which has increased the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.  With childhood obesity on the rise, parents, healthcare practitioners, and policymakers are expressing growing concern around the perceived "cause and effect" relationship between these marketing campaigns and food preferences.  Concerns around childhood obesity paired with parental objections of direct-to-child online and mobile advertising continue to fuel an ongoing effort to expand online privacy regulations for child.

Advergames reflect an example of digital marketing by the food and beverage industries.  In a 2007 report,  Mallincrodt and Mizerski linked higher preferences level for certain foods [Fruit Loops] among children who played the Fruit Loops advergame.

http://www.cinnamonjacks.com/
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/study-parents-concerned-about-digital-marketing-practices-targeting-kids-145710
http://www.aeforum.org/gallery/8612144.pdf