Digital Food Marketing
Definition marketing: it 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., PR communications. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter content).
—> Earned media: social media marketing, influencer marketing, public relations.
—> Food marketers and retailers also engage in marketing practices that do not involve speech,
such as establishing the price of products and determining where to locate the within a store.
—> 2 direct purposes to advertising: 1) to inform potential customers about a product, and 2) to
induce positive feelings about a product so they think of it as desirable.
Definition 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. This includes all activities that occur in between the completion of a product through to
the purchasing process of consumers.
Marketing mix: the 4 P’s.
• Product: 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: most influential P; important 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.
• Place: 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 or middle shelf).
• Promotion: 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, for example out-of-store, in-store and on the packaging. This P is
what the course is focusing on.
1
,Evolution of food marketing in 4 phases:
1. Fragmentation phase: end of 19th century.
—> Countries were divided into numerous geographic fragments for food sales because
transporting food was expensive, leaving most production, distribution, and selling locally
based.
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. Communication is necessary between regions.
—> This new distribution system was led by large food processors and by companies such as
Heinz, Quaker Oats, Campbell Soup, and Coca Cola which sold their brands (inter)nationally.
—> Advertising in print media and direct marketing through demonstrations at stores and
public venues were among the prime marketing tools.
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) led to the
possibility to ‘sell’ your brand and product worldwide.
—> Competition is important; the most communicative brand will survive.
4. Personalized or tailored phase: 2010 - current.
—> Personalized or tailored marketing possibilities have increased immensely due to big data
collections, AI, machine learning, neuromarketing and eye-tracking.
—> Added value because of the brand.
The objective of food marketing is to increase sales. Because of shareholders, companies have the
need to increase their sales every year. So, the power is in the hands of the shareholders.
2
,Objective of food marketing: ‘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
nutritional status or waistlines.’
People need to eat more of a company’s product, because prices do not increase. So, to satisfy
stakeholders, food companies must convince people to eat more of their products or to eat their
products instead of those of competitors. They do so through advertising and public relations, of
3
,course, but also by working tirelessly to convince government officials, nutrition professionals, and
the media that their products promote health - or at least to not harm them. Much of this work is a
virtually invisible part of contemporary culture that attracts occasional notice.
Ten largest food companies: Nestle, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Danone, General Mills,
Kellogg’s, Mars, Associated British Foods, Mondelez. They control everything you buy and eat.
—> Blue zones: zones in which people live where a higher percentage of people live longer than
100 years.
—> 90% of food marketing is for unhealthy foods (fast food and sugary drinks, cereals, sweets and
snacks).
—> Obesity is considered to be one of the biggest health concerns globally by national
governments and international health institutes ever since it started to emerge in 1980.
—> In the top 10 most obese nations is an isolated island group; only access to unhealthy food.
—> Food companies are obliged to communicate several things by law: state of origin, ingredients.
They put this information on the back of the packaging because then consumers will not
immediately see it when buying.
—> ‘Produced in [country]’ often means that the packaging is from there, not the product itself.
Date marking and food waste: difference between best before or use by.
—> They are coming up with different ways of conveying this: for example, by using colours.
Two different approaches when it comes to contemplating restrictions to promotional marketing:
• Rights-based approach: suggests that people, primarily children, should be protected from
commercially driven inducements to consume (and over-consume).
• Risk-based approach: suggests that the market has freedoms that should only be curtailed on
evidence of harm. This approach is more widespread but suffers from country-to-country
variations in the definitions of vulnerability, exposure and harm, e.g. on the age of the child.
4
, Article 1: Food marketing expenditures aimed at youth putting the numbers in context
A report from 2012 found an inflation-adjusted 19.5% reduction in marketing expenditures
targeted to youth from 2.1 billion dollars in 2006 to 1.8 billion dollars in 2009.
—> However, the overall marketing landscape did not change substantially. Children and teens still
see 12-16 TV ads per day for products generally high in saturated fat, sugar or sodium.
—> TV remains the dominant advertising medium, accounting for 35.4% of all youth-directed
marketing expenditures in both years.
—> Moreover, newer digital forms of unhealthy food and beverage marketing to youths are still
increasing with 50,7%. This raises concerns about potential effects of this exposure.
Self-regulatory Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI): member
companies of the CFBAI pledged to promote ‘healthier dietary choices’ in advertising directed to
children aged <12 years. Started in 2006.
—> The CFBAI nutrition standards were originally company-specific, but starting in 2014, the
current 16 member companies will apply uniform category-specific standards.
Interagency Working Group on Food Marketing to Children (IWG): developed
recommendations for nutrition standards for foods marketed to children and teens and the types of
marketing to which they should apply.
—> Although widely supported by public health experts, their standards have not been finalized or
adopted by the CFBAI.
FTC: Federal Trade Commission.
5
