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Not Just Kid Stuff

By Peter Breen

The Federal Trade Commission last month released its expected report on the level of marketing that food and beverage manufacturers target at children.

To refresh your memory: In July 2007, the FTC presented 44 leading consumer product manufacturers with compulsory orders requiring them to submit a detailed analysis of their marketing practices on brands that appeal to children. The information would be used to compile a report on how extensively food and beverage companies were targeting children with their marketing messages and, therefore, how much they might be influencing the dietary habits of America's youth.

Release of the report didn't make much of a splash in the media, probably because the FTC concluded that it doesn't need to enact any restrictions on current marketing activity. "Although there is room for improvement, the food and beverage industries have made significant progress since the FTC and the Department of Health and Human Services" began examining the issue in 2005, an FTC release stated.

So it doesn't appear that the marketing of salty snacks, carbonated beverages and sugary cereals is a major cause of childhood obesity in the U.S., as was suggested when the FTC began checking into the matter. With a conclusion like that, there wasn't anything overly sensational for the media to cover.

We, however, found plenty of noteworthy points of interest within the report, and any in-store marketing professional who's ever inquired about the size of this industry -- it's long been the most-asked question fielded by the Institute -- probably will, too.

The FTC's findings certainly don't qualify as a full-blown report on industry spending, or even as a wholly credible benchmarking study (participating companies don't, for instance, report spending on all of their brands).

But because the FTC required companies to provide total marketing expenditures in addition to those specifically targeted to kids, the report does offer a rare glimpse at how 44 (mostly) leading packaged goods companies divvy up their marketing budgets, and how that mix varies by product category. Nearly all the top in-store marketing players -- P&G, Kraft, Kellogg, PepsiCo, General Mills, Unilever, Coca-Cola -- are represented in the statistics.

The bottom-line learning is that in-store marketing commands the second largest piece of the pie (although it does get a much smaller slice than TV advertising. See more below). For us, that's definitely worth a bit of a splash.

Where there's a will, there's a Simple Mealtime Idea: Product marketers still lamenting the fact that Walmart's 2008 display guidelines have severely limited in-store branding opportunities should take note: This month, Kraft earned itself an entire branded aisle in supercenters by giving the chain an exclusive, integrated program centered on quick-fix meal ideas. It's just the latest example of how innovative thinking can produce exceptions to almost any rule. See the images here.

Peter Breen
Managing Director, Content
In-Store Marketing Institute



Published: August 2008

Source: In-Store Marketing Institute

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