Digital food marketing Lectures
Lecture 1: What is food marketing
In the first category, marketers communicate through an array of speech-based practices that included
both traditional advertising (e.g. billboards and television, radio, and print ads) and broader
promotional strategies (e.g. public relations communication and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter
Content. ~ Pomeranz & Adler (2015)
Food marketers and retailers also engage in marketing practices that don’t involve speech, such as
establishing the price of products and determining where to locate them within a store. E.g. Max
Verstappen races for Redbull (Redbull doesn’t have anything to do with racing because it’s an energy
drink – whenever you watch formula 1 you get reminded of Redbull).
Food marketing: The act of communicating to the consumer through a range of marketing techniques
in order to add value to a food product and persuade the consumer to purchase a product. This includes
all activities that occur in between the completion of a product to the purchasing process of
consumers. ~ Schaffner, Schroder & Earle (1998).
Marketingmix P’s
- Product: the product of the marketing refers to the goods and or services that the company
will offer to the consumer. A company can achieve this by either creating a new food product,
or by modifying or improving an existing food product.
1) McDonalds follows regulations but knows that children order a happy meal for the
fries and the burgers and not for the carrots.
2) Unicef laws: Children have to grow up in a healthy and safe environment, but they see
that almost all supermarkets don’t follow this. E.g. “Schijf van vijf” making it almost
impossible for parents or children to buy healthy products
3) In some regions it’s impossible to buy something healthy because it’s not there/too far
away.
- Price: pricing is an important aspect in order to influence the buying activity, when people are
in the stores, or to persuade people to go to the stores and also buy other products that are not
related to the advertised foods.
1) McDonalds is considered very cheap
- Promotion!!!: promotion of the marketing mix is defined as the actions used to communicate
a food product’s features and benefits; therefore, persuading the consumer to purchase the
product. There are multiple avenues used to promote a food product to consumers. Some
examples are out-of-store., in-store and on the packaging, Food advertisements on television
are used to attract the consumer persuading them to go to the store and purchase that food
product. Additionally, promotions in magazines and newspapers may offer coupons for food
products. – all added value / additional layers they put around a product
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MflT017ZPCs
2) The psychological decision is made by the first time you see it in a commercial. They
manipulate this information because it will influence your decision although it doesn’t
look the same.
- Place: place refers to the distribution and warehousing efforts necessary to move a food from
the manufacturer to a location where consumers can buy it. It can also refer to where the
product is located in a retail outlet (e.g. the end of an aisle; the top, bottom, or middle shelf; in
a special display case etc.)
1) People decide based on what they see.
Three (or four?) phases distinguished:
1) Fragmentation phase: - (… - end of 19th century)
,In this phase, countries were divided into numerous geographic fragments for foodsales because
transporting food was very expensive.
2) Unification phase: - (end of 19th century – mid 20st century
Distribution was made possible by railroads, coordination, coordination of sales forces was made
possible by the telegraph and telephone, and product consistency was made possible by advances in
manufacturing. This new distribution system was led by large food processors and by companies such
as Heinz, Quaker Oats, Campbell Soup and Coca Cola.
3) Segmentation phase: (1950 – current)
Television and internet advertising made it possible for a wider range of competing products to focus
on different benefits and images and thus appeal to different demographics and psychographic
markets. More efficient distributions (e.g. flights, boats, trains, trucks) led to the possibility to sell
your brand and product worldwide. But also competition.
4) Personalized/tailored phase: (2010-current)
Neuromarketing to scan your brain and tells which products work for certain people. Possibilities in
this have increased immensely due to big data collections, artificial intelligence, machine learning,
neuromarketing, eye-tracking. Implement a logarithm to predict the needs of people. By eye tracking
they can see how long and how many times people look at certain products.
Objective food marketing?
In food marketing people want to increase sales. Because of the competition, organisations can’t raise
the price. They use more efficient, persuasive and subconscious marketing techniques than their
competitors. With the consequence that the food quality becomes lower to make it cheaper to produce
and overeating, because they need to sell more every year, otherwise you can’t pay your
investors/shareholders. They want to have profit for the money they have invested.
The overly abundant food supply, combined with a society so affluent that most people can afford to
buy more food that they need, sets the stage for competition. The food industry must compete fiercely
for every dollar spent on food and food companies expend extraordinary resources to develop
marketing products that will sell.
To satisfy stakeholders, food companies must convince people to eat more of their products or to eat
their products instead of those of other companies
Ten largest companies
These companies control everything you buy.
- Nestle
- PepsiCo
- Coca-Cola
- Kellogg’s
- Danone
- Mars
- Mondelez
- Unilever
- Associated British Foods
Blue zones:
Zones in where people live very young, over 100 years and are still fit.
- Move naturally – by foot
- Right tribes – socially right, positive
- Right outlook: mountains/hills/forests nature, no traffic lights etc,
- Eat wisely – healthy vegetables, fruits etc, not much meat. Dairy.
American Samoa – in the middle of nowhere (like the blue zones) but 74.6% of the people is obese.
Developed in the in the last decade. They only eat all these manufactured food.
,Date marking and food waste
Used by (don’t consume after this date) / best before (you can still consume after this date but smell,
see and taste). 70% of food is thrown away but can still be consumed. Food marketing is also apps that
help you with these products to see when you can still eat it.
Lecture 2: Mix of Food Marketing
Freedom of speech so you can advertise your products in the way you want (without making claims)
Can people really decide for themselves when to watch an advertisement or what to buy? Or are they
subconsciously influenced to consume certain foods.
➔ Evidence shows people are mostly not that rational.
- McDonalds changed their Happy Meals according to regulations to have tomatoes/carrots etc.
But children still order Happy Meals for the burger and fries.
- Redbull now attached to Formula 1 – Max Verstappen → nutrition is the same but a lot of
additional marketing/slogans etc. (added value)
- People can easily name 10 different fast food brand but not 3 fruit and vegetable brands.
- Slogans are used to make it more appealing and automatise the association between the brand
and all the added value/marketing.
- Coca Cola use Santa Claus as a happy, jolly person to market drinking Coca Cola as the best
alternative to alcohol during Christmas season. Coca Cola also modify slogans during certain
seasons.
- Redbull had to pay people because Redbull doesn’t give you wings
- Nutella had to pay people because they claimed a certain amount of Nutella you could put on
your bread everyday but this is not true because people became overweight.
Food advertisements expenditures:
Most of the expenditure advertising is spent on unhealthy food products.
Companies need to sell every year in order to pay investors.
Link between the two trends?
- Increasing expenditure food advertisements → Energy-dense snacks (foods that have a high
caloric content)
- Increased obesity and overweight → when you consume these foods for too long and too often
you will become chronically sick
, Sugar addiction: the perpetual cycle:
1) You eat sugar: you like it/crave it → addictive properties
2) Blood sugar levels spike → dopamine is released in the brain = addiction, mass insulin
secreted to drop blood sugar levels
3) Blood sugar level’s fall rapidly: high insulin levels cause immediate fat storage, body craves
the lost sugar high.
4) Hunger & cravings: low blood sugar levels cause increased appetite and cravings. Thus the
cycle is repeated
➔ Food marketing is stimulating you continuously to start this cycle/.
➔ No one eats 1 portion e.g. 1 portion of Doritos is 11 chips
➔ A little percentage of people checks the nutrition facts on the back, and people who do check
don’t base their consumption or purchase behaviour on this.
In order to have a strong case you need to have a claim that if you see food advertising, this changes
your attitudes.
Food advertisements have a direct effect on:
- (Brand/Product)Attitudes
- Cognitions
- Emotions: Coca Cola claims that coke makes you happy, should then be true
- Eating/consumption behaviour
Main Question
- Is there a causal relationship between food advertisements and food intake? → people need to
buy it but also need to eat it (2 different things)
- Does food marketing have a role in the obesity epidemic? [Folkvord, Anschutz, Boyland,
Kelly, & Buijzen (2016). Current Opinion in Behavioural Sciences.]
- “Crucially, the balance of literature suggests that the association between television viewing
and obesity remains significant even when potential confounding variables such as
socioeconomic status, familial tendency to overweight, and, critically, levels of physical
activity are taken into account” (Boyland & Halford, 2013)
“Old Media/Advertisements”
- Television
- Newspaper
- Radio
- Magazines
- Billboards
“New Media/Advertisements” (rapid increase)
- Banners on websites
- “Social media”
- Product placement in movies, shows, series
- Promotional characters (especially for children e.g. frozen on the package)
- Celebrity endorsement
- Giveaways
- Sport stars
- Viral marketing
- Program and event sponsorships: “the McDonalds Tennis Tournament”
- Advertising within schools
➔ Trend in increased embedding food cues in content
➔ Main interest: advergames
