Sugary Pitches to Kids Capture a Sweet Market

It’s enough to make the Sugar Crisp bear hibernate.

Cereal makers spend billions each year nudging kids to gobble one of their 150 brands. But when one researcher recently asked 100 children to draw the first product that came to mind when they go shopping, the majority of the kids drew pictures of fruit. Many drew vegetables.

None drew cereal boxes. What makes this omission even more surprising is that breakfast cereals remain one of the fastest-growing categories in the supermarket, one where children practically control purchases.

“Healthy foods are on kids’ minds, but the advertisers of these products have not taken the cues,” said James McNeal, a children’s marketing expert and professor of marketing at Texas A&M; who helped conduct the study.

A whopping $60 billion was spent on or by children last year, the Food Marketing Institute estimates. Advertising executives say that selling green beans to children is basically no different than selling Fritos. But it’s the big packaged goods companies--not the fresh produce firms--with the fat ad budgets to capture childrens’ fancies.

‘The key is fantasy,” said one Madison Avenue adman who has created children’s ads for nearly 40 years.

But reality may be catching up with fantasy. Nine of 10 ads on Saturday morning television are for some sort of nutritionally flawed food, the Washington-based consumers group Center for Science in the Public Interest said earlier this week.

The group has asked the federal government to increase nutritional information on Saturday morning TV commercials for cereals, fast foods and snack foods. At same the time, some youth marketing experts believe that it really is not all that difficult to sell more nutritious products to children.

The problem is, few of the giant packaged goods advertisers--who can afford to spend millions of dollars on national ad campaigns--make or package these “healthier” products.

“When you think about it, there really aren’t many major national brands of fresh apples, peaches or broccoli,” said Marty Friedman, editor of New Product News.

But that hasn’t stopped some consumer advocates from trying to interest kids in foods besides hot dogs and pizza. Nearly two decades ago, a series of public service TV spots tried to persuade children that fruits and vegetables were OK. The off-the-wall ads were parodies that looked much like illustrations from Mad magazine. In one ad, a bride walked down the aisle carrying an armful of cauliflower instead of flowers.

Although the ads didn’t air enough to affect fruit or vegetable sales, children loved them. “They made the good stuff look as fun and exciting as the bad stuff,” said Peggy Charren, president of the Cambridge, Mass.-based consumer advocacy group Action for Children’s Television.

Perhaps that marketing tactic should be tried today, she proposes. “Why not put good food inside the cereal boxes and attract kids by pitching it like junk food?” Charren asked.

Many of today’s sugar-laden cereals, such as Fruity Pebbles or Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal, exist only because of children’s TV programming, Charren said. “It never occured to anyone to make purple cereal with marshmallows in the middle until children’s TV” came along.

Meanwhile, special licensing agreements--which usually last about a year--are leading to a host of cereals that come and go with the popularity of the characters. Ralston Purina Co., for example, has swung a deal with Warner Bros. to sell “Prince of the Thieves” cereal this summer, a tie-in with the upcoming film “Robin Hood: Prince of the Thieves.”

What’s wrong with promoting these sugary cereals? They can cause tooth decay, obesity and heart disease, says the Center for Science. For its part, however, Ralston denies that. “These cereals are good food products,” Ralston spokesman Patrick Farrell said. “The fact that they are sweetened does not make them bad.”

Some insist that the best way to get children hankering for products is to tuck incentives inside the boxes. Long before McDonald’s started stuffing toys into its “Happy Meals,” cereal makers were cramming toys into cereal boxes. By one estimate, up to 85% of all kids cereal boxes have some sort of free gifts inside.

Most recently, other foods aimed at children have also started including free gifts. Kids Cuisine, a new microwave dinner made by the food company ConAgra Inc., has been attracting kids with free gifts for more than a year.

But the man whose company has helped virtually every major cereal company decide what to place in its boxes says there is a limit to the effectiveness of these freebies. “I never heard of a kid eating broccoli because you give him a bike reflector,” said J. J. McLaughlin, president of Arlington Height, Ill.-based National Creative Marketing. “It’s not going to happen.”

Regardless of the product, children won’t pay any attention to the advertising if it doesn’t come across as fun. “If it doesn’t look fun on television, forget it,” said Cy Schneider, author of “Children’s Television: The Art, The Business and How It Works.”

Kid Power $60 billion was spent on or by children last year, an increase of 179% over the last eight years.

Children receive $15.7 billion annually in allowance and spending money.

Children between the ages of 6 and 12 spend more than $7 billion a year.

Children influence 78% of decisions on children’s breakfast cereal purchases and 72% of clothing choices.

Sixty-five percent of children go to the supermarket at least once a week.

Source: Food Marketing Institute

New Products for Kids 203 new food products--not including 31 baby foods--and 78 non-food products were introduced last year to lure the young consumer. The food products, by category: Category Candy, gum, snacks Number of new products 64 Description Candies, nuts, snack bars, fruit bars, meat snacks Category Entrees Number of new products 48 Description ConAgra’s Snoopy’s Choice line of children’s dinners Category Dairy products Number of new products 24 Description Milk, ice cream and frozen novelties, cheese, yogurt Category Beverages, mixes Number of new products 18 Description Fruit and vegetable juices, sodas, waters Category Bakery products Number of new products 16 Description Breads, cakes, pies, doughnuts, snack cakes, cookies, crackers, waffles, toaster pastries Category Breakfast cereals Number of new products 11 Description Hot and cold, often based on popular movie or cartoon characters Category Side dishes Number of new products 10 Description Includes macaroni and cheese items Category Processed meats Number of new products 6Description Dubuque’s line of children’s lunch meats Category Baking ingredients Number of new products 5Description Mixes, such as cookie, cake or frosting products Category Fruits, vegetables Number of new products 1Description Melissa’s Fresh Pack healthy snacks sold in a lunch-box-style reclosable package Some of the 78 new non-food products for children include health and beauty aids, vitamins and packaged medicines, hair-care, skin and suntan products and perfumes. Source: Gorman’s New Product News