Notes - Digital food marketing
Lecture 1
What is food marketing?
Pomeranz & Adler, 2015
Marketing is a broad concept that includes (1) speech-based communications, and (2) non-
speech related activities. 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
communications and YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter content).
Schaffner, Schroder, & Earle, 1998
Food marketing is 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. This
includes all activities that occur in between the completion of a product through to the
purchasing process of consumers.
Marketing mix for food marketing:
- Product
The product of the marketing mix 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.
- 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 buy also other products that are not
related to the advertised foods.
- 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.
- Place
Place refers to the distribution and warehousing efforts necessary to move a food from the
manufacturer to a location where a consumer 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.)
Three/Four phases:
- Fragmentation phase (until end of 19th century)
In this phase, countries were divided into numerous geographic fragments for food sales because
transporting food was expensive, leaving most production, distribution, and selling locally based
- Unification phase (end 19th century – mid 20th century)
Distribution was made possible by railroads, coordination, telegraph and telephones. Product
consistency made possible by large manufacturers. This system was led by large food processers
which sold their brands internationally. Advertising in print media and direct marketing through
demonstrations at stores and public venues were among the prime marketing tools.
, - Segmentation phase (1950 - current)
Radio, tv and internet advertising made it possible for 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.
- Personalized/tailored phase (2010 – current)
Personalized/tailored marketing possibilities have increased immensely due to big data collections,
artificial intelligence, machine learning, neuromarketing, eye tracking. People also have less
attention, need shorter videos etc. Companies know a lot about their clients which they use to give
them tailored advertising for example.
The main objective of food marketing = increase sales by selling more products (not by increasing the
price).
The automatic consequence of food marketing is causing overeating. With the same amount of people
and wanting to sell more product than last year, then every person has to buy more.
The issue is that stakeholders/investors give you money to increase sales, so then you have to. If you are
net led by an owner, then you are forced by the stakeholders to grow.
Decreasing the nutritional value of the food, also helps to increase profit for the company as the costs
get lowered. Then people can get overweight, get too much sugar/fat/salt and get higher health costs.
Capitalism is also stimulated by the competition.
In summary the overly abundant food supply, combined with a society so affluent that most people
can afford to buy more food than 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 market products that will sell, regardless of their effect on the nutritional value.
To satisfy stakeholders, food companies must convince you to eat more of their products or eat their
products instead of those of competitors
Another issue of food marketing is that there are ten large companies that have bought almost all food
companies. Their main goal has always been to make money, and now they are realizing that they need
to be more sustainable.
Lecture 2
Increasing expenditure food advertisements (more manipulated in order to compete) → Energy-dense
snacks (= foods with high caloric content, which are fat sugar and salt) which has led to increased
obesity which will lead to chronic illness over time
Food marketing keeps the process of sugar going:
1. You eat sugar
2. Blood sugar levels spike
3. Blood sugar levels fall rapidly
4. Hunger & cravings
Food advertisements have a direct effect on:
- Brand/product attitudes
- Cognitions
- Emotions
, - Eating/consumption behavior
The most important is the buying. Companies don’t care if you eat the product, they care about you
buying the product.
Is there a causal relationship between food advertisements and food intake?
Literature says 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
- Banners on websites
- Social media
- Product placement in movies, shows, series
Also promotional characters (e.g. Frozen), celebrity endorsements and giveaways are new forms of
advertisements.
Advergames Computer games specifically created to function as advertisements to promote brands,
where the entertainment content mimics traditional game forms (Kretchmer 2005, p. 7) particularly
designed for children
Why target children? Tailored marketing is the new device
Children:
- Are easy to manipulate
- The “Nag-factor” (= zeuren)
- Can and do spend money
- But most important Life-long consumers
Conclusion of study 1 from teacher:
- Children that played an advergame promoting unhealthy or healthy food had a higher food
intake of unhealthy food than children who played the advergame promoting toys or control
group
- No interaction effects for gender and game attitude
- Implications for healthy game makers.
Conclusion of study 2 from teacher:
- Energy-dense advergame → higher caloric intake
- Stimulate response inhibition → lower caloric intake
- When children play an advergame promoting energydense snacks it is more difficult to inhibit
responses
, - Impulsive children had more difficulties with inhibiting responses during the energy-dense
advergame
- The same is true for children with an attentional bias for food cues (Folkvord et al., 2015)
- Individual susceptibility
General conclusion
- Food advertisements influence (unhealthy) eating behavior
- Food advertisements manipulate self-regulation of food intake
- Food advertisements are for 97 % focused on unhealthy food (high in fat, sugar, and salt)
Social marketing
Can the same techniques used for unhealthy food marketing be used for promoting healthy foods?
E.g. batman trying the promote healthy drinks
Possible solutions if social marketing does not work
- Legislation
- Food companies responsibilities
- Parental responsibilities
- Children’s responsibilities
- Subconscious decision making (is being tested now)
Literature lecture 2
Powell et al. (2013)
The article describes that there was a large reduction in expenditures in food/beverage marketing
targeted at children. However, findings from the FTC (= Federal Trade Commission) and other researches
show several other areas concerning public health:
- Nutritional quality of foods and beverages marketed to youth remains poor
