| Summary: | This report is a follow-up to the Federal Trade Commission's 2008 report: Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities, and Self-Regulation. The current report compares 2006 data to 2009 data from the 44 original companies and four additional companies. Total spending on food marketing to youth dropped 19.5% in 2009, to $1.79 billion. Spending on youth-directed television advertising fell 19.5%, while spending on new media, such as online and viral marketing, increased 50%. The overall picture of how marketers reach children, however, did not significantly change. Companies continue to use a wide variety of techniques to reach young people, and marketing campaigns are heavily integrated, combining traditional media, Internet, digital marketing, packaging, and often using cross-promotions with popular movies or TV characters across all of these. Those techniques are highly effective. Consumer research submitted by the reporting companies confirms the "pester power" phenomenon -- child-directed marketing and promotional activities drive children's food requests. Children, in turn, play an important role in which products their parents purchase at the store, and which restaurants they frequent.
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