Tag: advertising
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British Newspaper Reports Scheme to Recruit Youth Marketers
“Children are being paid up to £25 a week to promote sugary soft drinks and other products through social networking sites and playground chat,” claims a February 15, 2010, report published in the Daily Mail. Titled “Child ‘Mini-Marketers’ Paid by Junk Food Firms to Secretly Push Products Among Their Friends,” the article focuses on an…
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Sweetener Spat Provokes Recommendation to Discontinue “Natural” Ad Claims
The Council of Better Business Bureaus’ National Advertising Division (NAD), which serves as the investigative arm of the advertising industry’s voluntary self-regulation program, has recommended that Heartland Sweeteners cease making some claims about its Ideal® sweetener product. The recommendation apparently followed a complaint by Merisant Co., a Heartland competitor, that Ideal® is not “natural” or “more…
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FTC Seeks Comment on Self-Regulatory Guidelines to Protect Children’s Online Privacy
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a notice seeking public comments on a proposed set of self-regulatory guidelines submitted by i-SAFE, Inc. under the safe harbor provision of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. Comments must be submitted by March 1, 2010. The organization that prepared the proposed guidelines is a non-profit that for…
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WHO Board to Discuss Food Marketing Targeting Kids
The 34-member Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) is scheduled to discuss 12 specific recommendations for protecting children from the marketing of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverages at the board’s upcoming 126th session slated for January 18-23, 2010, in Geneva. The proposed mechanisms for promoting “responsible” marketing of such fare are contained in…
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House Proposal Would Deny Tax Deduction for Fast Food Ads Targeting Children
Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced a bill (H.R. 4310) that would amend the tax code to deny “any deduction for advertising and marketing directed at children to promote the consumption of food at fast food restaurants or of food of poor nutritional quality.” The proposal defines “food of poor nutritional quality” as food “determined…
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U.S. Agencies Announce Plans to Regulate Food Marketing to Kids
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently hosted a forum titled “Sizing up Food Marketing and Obesity,” which heard proposals from federal agencies, consumer watchdogs and industry representatives for regulating food advertising to children. In addition to addressing new research, First Amendment issues and self-regulatory initiatives, the forum unveiled a set of proposed nutritional standards (SNAC…
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CSPI Report Criticizes Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has issued a report alleging that “nearly 80 percent of food ads on the popular children’s network Nickelodeon are for foods of poor nutritional quality.” Titled “Better-For-Who? Revisiting company promises on food marketing to children,” the analysis purportedly revealed that one-fourth of the food and beverage…
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Study Recommends Prohibiting Alcohol Advertising in Boston’s Public Transit System
Concluding that alcohol ads are viewed more than 18,000 times by public school student transit passengers during an average weekday, a new study recommends that Boston’s public transit system be prohibited from displaying alcohol advertisements. Justin Nyborn, et. al, “Alcohol Advertising on Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Transit System: An Assessment of Youths’ and…