Appetite 62 (2013) 236–241

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Appetite

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate /appet

Research review

Television advertising and branding. Effects on eating behaviour and foodpreferences in children

Emma J. Boyland ⇑, Jason C.G. HalfordDepartment of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZA, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 1 December 2011Received in revised form 5 January 2012Accepted 28 January 2012Available online 12 March 2012

Keywords:Food advertsChildrenMarketingObesity

0195-6663/$ - see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltd. Ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2012.01.032

⇑ Corresponding author.E-mail address: e.boyland@liv.ac.uk (E.J. Boyland).

a b s t r a c t

Television provides one of the first, and most intimate, experiences of commercial food promotion. There-fore, unsurprisingly, the effects of television advertising on children’s brand preferences are well estab-lished. However, its effect on actual food intake and the food choices in children of various weightstatuses has only recently been characterised. Despite regulation, children in the UK are exposed to con-siderable numbers of food adverts on television. These are predominantly for foods high in fat, salt andsugar (HFSS), which are marketed to children using promotional characters and themes of fun. Suchadverts have been shown to cause significant increases in intake, particularly in overweight and obesechildren, and enhanced preference for high carbohydrate and high fat foods in children who consumethe greatest amounts of televisual media.

� 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236Links between television viewing and obesity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236Television viewing and children’s food intake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

The immediate impact of TV on food choice and consumption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237The longer term impact of TV on obesity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Television food advertising and branding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Nature and extent of food advertising to children on television . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Advertising impacts on children’s food preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239Advertising impacts on children’s food intake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Introduction

Television influences the attitudes, behaviours, and values ofviewers, particularly children (Byrd-Bredbenner, 2002; Nash, Pine,& Messer, 2009). Consequently, television viewing and the result-ing exposure to food advertising (Hamilton-Ekeke & Thomas,2007; St-Onge, Keller, & Heymsfield, 2003) and branding (Jaeger,2006; Just & Payne, 2009) have been proposed as important factorsin influencing food choice decisions and therefore determining die-tary health and obesity risk. Children are major targets for market-ing by the food industry, given that they have both independentspending power (current and future) and a significant influence

ll rights reserved.

over family spending. The influence of television, television adver-tising and branding on food preference and eating behaviour inchildren is the focus of this review.

Links between television viewing and obesity

It has been argued that greater than 60% of overweight inci-dence amongst children and adolescents in the US could be attrib-uted to television viewing (Gortmaker et al., 1996). Importantly, ithas even been shown that television viewing in childhood canindependently predict increased adult body mass index, suggestinga causal link (Viner & Cole, 2005).

Crucially, the balance of literature suggests that the associationbetween television viewing and obesity remains significant evenwhen potential confounding variables such as socioeconomic

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status, familial tendency to overweight (Hancox & Poulton, 2006)and, critically, levels of physical activity (Eisenmann, Bartee, Smith,Welk, & Fu, 2008; Epstein et al., 2008) are taken into account. There-fore, it is not simply the case that television viewing is linked toobesity because it is a sedentary activity, rather the association ap-pears to be due to the effects of television viewing on energy intake.

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% of food ads % core % non-core % misc

Mea

n pr

opor Non-peak

Fig. 1. The proportion of adverts that were for food, and the proportion of foodadverts specifically that were for core, non-core and miscellaneous food itemsbetween peak and non-peak children’s viewing times (from 2008 data reported inBoyland et al., 2011b).

Television viewing and children’s food intake

The immediate impact of TV on food choice and consumption

Numerous studies have demonstrated that energy intake in-creases during television viewing. Specifically, Crespo et al.(2001) found that girls who watched 5 or more hours of televisiona day consumed an extra 175 kcal per day on average compared tothose watching 1 h or less of television daily. Wiecha et al. (2006)found an even bigger increase in intake to be associated with eachadditional hour of television viewing per day. It is clear that thecumulative effect of even a small daily increase in kcal intake couldcontribute to a positive energy balance.

Typically, increases in caloric intake associated with televisionviewing are chiefly due to increases in the consumption of foodsthat are both energy dense and low in nutrients (Davison, Marshall,& Birch, 2006) (i.e. HFSS), so television viewing is associated withpoor overall diet quality. The amount of time spent viewing televi-sion has been found to be predictive of unhealthy conceptionsabout food and poor eating habits generally (Signorielli & Lears,1992; Woodward et al., 1997). Several studies have found that tele-vision viewing was inversely associated with intake of fruit andvegetables (Boynton-Jarrett et al., 2003; Coon, Goldberg, Rogers,& Tucker, 2001) or with individuals deriving more of their dailyenergy intake from HFSS foods (Coon et al., 2001; Miller, Taveras,Rifas-Shiman, & Gillman, 2008).

Furthermore, eating whilst watching television (whether eatingsnacks in front of the television or having television viewing as partof the meal time routine) has been shown to affect food choice andcaloric intake. Marquis, Filion, and Dagenais (2005) showed thateating in front of the television was positively associated with chil-dren’s general consumption of a number of items including Frenchfries, salty snacks, ice cream, confectionery, pastries, sweetenedcereals, fruit beverages and soft drinks. It has been suggested thatchildren in particular consume a substantial proportion of theirdaily energy whilst watching television, 20% and 25% for weekdaysand weekend days respectively (Matheson, Killen, Wang, Varady, &Robinson, 2004), therefore television viewing could have a signifi-cant impact on both the types of food items selected and the over-all level of consumption.

The longer term impact of TV on obesity

Food advertising has often been proposed as a candidate for theassociation between television viewing and adiposity. In support ofthis, Lobstein and Dibb (2005) found a significant, positive correla-tion between levels of overweight in nine countries (seven EUcountries, the US and Australia) and the number of television ad-verts for sweet or fatty foods broadcast in a 20 h period. Further-more, a recent study by Zimmerman & Bell (2010) showed thatthere was a significant association between commercial viewingin 1997 and BMI z-score in 2002 for children aged 0–6 years. Thisassociation was robust even when exercise and eating while view-ing were taken into account, which supports the assertion that thelink between TV viewing and obesity is not due to the former beinga sedentary activity, rather it indicates that it is the advertising ontelevision that is associated with obesity.

Television food advertising and branding

Nature and extent of food advertising to children on television

Despite technological innovations such as the internet, televi-sion remains one of the most powerful sources of communicationwe have (Abbatangelo-Gray, Byrd-Bredbenner, & Austin, 2008).Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, across the globe, television is stillthe primary medium used for advertising food and drink products(Eagle, Bulmer, De Bruin, & Kitchen, 2004; Henderson & Kelly,2005; Story & French, 2004). In the US, $1 billion is spent annuallyon youth-oriented media advertising, particularly on television(Story & French, 2004).

National policies and practices regarding the control of foodadvertising to children on television vary between countries, evenwithin the EU (IASO, 2010). Statutory legislation was introduced inthe UK in 2007 restricting the advertising of HFSS foods in andaround programming specifically made for or of particular appealto children under 16 years of age (Ofcom, 2007). Regulationsregarding the content of food advertising (regardless of when itis scheduled) were also applied at this time, prohibiting the useof licensed characters, celebrities, promotional offers and healthclaims in advertisements for HFSS products targeted at pre-schoolor primary school children. However, despite these regulations, acomprehensive study of over 5000 h of television on the channelsmost popular with young people showed that children in the UKare still exposed to more advertising for unhealthy than healthyfoods, even at peak children’s viewing times (Boyland, Harrold,Kirkham, & Halford, 2011b) (see Fig. 1).

Criticisms of the regulations have focused particularly on theway in which programmes ‘of particular appeal to children’ areidentified, namely the use of audience indexing. This method ap-plies advertising restrictions if programmes have an audience inwhich the proportion of viewers under 16 years is at least 20%higher than the proportion of children in this age group in the gen-eral population. This means that the food advertising restrictionsdo not apply to programmes which also have a high adult audi-ence, this describes most family programming and particularlyprimetime entertainment shows which frequently attract childaudiences of over 1 million (a greater child audience than typicallywatches child-specific programming) (Which?, 2006; Which?,2008). In addition, there are concerns over the lack of restrictionsregarding (1) the use of brand equity characters (such as Tonythe Tiger promoting Kellogg’s Frosties) in HFSS food advertisingas they are thought to influence children’s food choices (see discus-sion below) and (2) brand advertising, where no food products are

238 E.J. Boyland, J.C.G. Halford / Appetite 62 (2013) 236–241

shown but the brand logo and message (with strong associations tothe HFSS foods produced under that brand name) can still berepeatedly reinforced.

Of the ten most frequently advertised food items, six were un-healthy items such as fast food, high sugar/low fibre breakfastcereals, chocolate/confectionery and snack foods (Boyland et al.,2011b).

Similarly, numerous studies from around the globe have shownthat typically the majority of adverts broadcast are for unhealthy,HFSS products (Batada, Seitz, Wootan, & Story, 2008; Batrinou &Kanellou, 2009; Chapman, Nicholas, Banovic, & Supramaniam,2006; Jenkin, Wilson, & Hermanson, 2009; Kelly et al., 2010). Over-all, it is clear that the foods advertised reflect a dietary pattern thatwould be associated with increased risk of obesity and are not inline with recommended nutritional guidelines (WHO, 2003).

The way in which these foods are advertised is also worthy ofnote. A recent study in the British Journal of Nutrition (Adams,Tyrrell, & White, 2011) found that in approximately a third of foodadvertisements, an ‘incidental food’ appeared alongside the itemthat was the focal point of the advertisement (the ‘primary food’).The most common food group represented among primary foodswas ‘foods and drinks high in fat and/or sugar’ (41%, e.g. chocolate,cakes, full-sugar carbonated soft drinks). Among incidental foodsthe most frequently represented food group was ‘fruit and vegeta-bles’, and these foods were significantly less likely to be high in fatand/or sugar. So where a wider food context was present in the ad-vert, this context tended to be healthier than the branded foodsthat were the focus of the advert. The authors concluded that thismay be perceived as reinforcing the idea of a balanced diet, or mayadd an unjustified aura of ‘healthiness’ to the advertised food(Adams et al., 2011).

Advertisers also use particular persuasive techniques to appealto children and young people (such as the use of appeals, promo-tional characters, celebrity endorsement and giveaways) (Commit-tee on Communications, 2006), and such techniques do affect thepopularity of the advert with children (Nash et al., 2009). Again,despite regulatory control in the UK, the use of promotional char-acters and other techniques known to appeal to children is wide-spread amongst food advertising on popular commercialchannels (Boyland, Harrold, Kirkham, & Halford, 2012). Childrennaturally focus their attention on techniques such as animationand visual effects, and emotional appeals do distract children fromother aspects of adverts for example nutritional disclaimers orproduct information (Wicks, Warren, Fosu, & Wicks, 2009).

Branding is critical to product choice, particularly for childrenand young people; therefore the majority of child-oriented foodadvertisements take a branding approach (Connor, 2006). Televi-sion advertising is thought to be very effective at building strongbrands (Heath, 2009). Of all commodities, food is one of the mosthighly branded items, with over 80% of US grocery items being mar-keted under a brand (Story & French, 2004). This level of branding offood products lends itself to major advertising campaigns, and foodmanufacturers carry out advertising activity with the aim of build-ing brand awareness and brand loyalty as it is believed that brandpreference precedes purchase behaviour (Story & French, 2004).

Children are critical targets for marketing and branding activity;they have independent spending power but also exert considerableinfluence over family purchases. Food and drink purchases are thecategories over which children have particular influence (Sønderg-aard & Edelenbos, 2007). In addition, children are also seen as‘‘teenage and adult shoppers of the future’’ so that any brand loy-alty that is fostered at a young age may reward the food companywith a lifetime of sales, potentially worth $100,000 to a retailer(Escalante de Cruz, Phillips, & Saunders, 2004).

There are numerous examples of food branding activity used toappeal to children. Brand licensing is prevalent in children’s

programming, and the release of each new movie aimed at youngpeople is typically accompanied by a raft of product tie-ins. Follow-ing the release of the SpongeBob Squarepants™ movie in 2004, thecharacter name was associated with and used to promote numer-ous food products, and concurrently Burger King offered Sponge-Bob toys and watches at its restaurants (Linn & Golin, 2006).

Numerous brands use characters and celebrities in their promo-tions and on product packaging, and their presence is believed toassist with generating brand identity and facilitating a brand-con-sumer relationship (Lawrence, 2003). This can be in the form ofbrand licensed characters (such as SpongeBob Squarepants™ asmentioned above); or brand equity characters which are createdfor the sole purpose of promoting a product or brand (Garretson& Niedrich, 2004). Many of these associations have been built upover generations, for example Tony the Tiger has been the charac-ter for Kellogg’s Frosties since 1951 (Lawrence, 2003). Celebrityendorsements are also used in order to link a brand to a certainage group or fan base (IOM, 2005). In the UK, former Internationalfootballer Gary Lineker, now a TV sports presenter, has beenendorsing the promotional campaign for Walkers Crisps since1995, during which time the brand won an award for being the‘consumer’s favourite in the food and drink category’ (BritishBroadcasting Association, 2004).

Product placement in television programming, such as theappearance of Coca-Cola in each episode of American Idol, is oneof many contentious branding activities but is effective in ensuringthat children are exposed to brands in as many situations as possi-ble. There are also several other branding avenues used to reachchild and adolescent audiences such as internet advergaming(Pempek & Calvert, 2009), viral marketing, product, programmeand event sponsorship, mobile phone advertising, advertisingwithin schools and point-of-sale marketing (Lindstrom, 2004) sothat both the frequency and intensity of children’s exposure tobranding messages is unprecedented (Linn, 2004).

In response to such ubiquitous branding activity, brand loyaltycan be established by two or three years of age. Before they areeven able to read, some children have already begun to make re-quests specifically for named branded products (Escalante de Cruzet al., 2004). It has been suggested that exposure to a brand early inchildhood in particular is critical for the creation of emotionalattachments and the solidification of the relationship with thatbrand (LaTour, LaTour, & Zinkhan, 2010). Brand relationshipsformed by children early in life are thought to be more imbeddedthan those formed later (Ji, 2002). The brand of an item has beenstated as one of six key factors that drive children’s purchasingdecisions, alongside fun, taste, peer-pressure, status and packaging(BHF, 2008).

Findings from our own research have indicated that followingfood advert exposure, correct recall of adverts is significantly re-lated to the subsequent number of food items selected (Halfordet al., 2008a). Furthermore, it was found that obese children cor-rectly recognised a greater number of food adverts than normalweight children, and this recognition was positively correlated withthe amount of food consumed subsequently (Halford, Gillespie,Brown, Pontin, & Dovey, 2004). Additionally, recognition of food ad-verts was related to BMI in 5–7 year old children (Halford, Boyland,Hughes, Oliveira, & Dovey, 2007) which is supportive of otherstudies linking brand recognition and weight status (Arredondo,Castaneda, Elder, Slymen, & Dozier, 2009). The term ‘recognition’in this context, as distinct from recall, refers to a child’s ability toselect the correct option from a number of visual cues provided.

Celebrity endorsements are effective at increasing children’spreferences for the product being promoted (Erdogan, 1999; Rosset al., 1984). Furthermore, the association of known and likedbrand characters with a food has been shown to influence thelikelihood of children agreeing to eat that food, and increased

Fig. 3. The weight of food eaten after viewing advertisements by lean, overweightand obese groups in the session with non-food ads (open columns) and in thesession with food ads (filled columns); mean values with SE bars; (from Halfordet al., 2004).

Fig. 2. Mean (SEM, indicated by the error bars) number of branded and non-branded items selected from a food preference measure in each condition according tomacronutrient category (from Boyland et al., 2011a). aP < .01, bP < .001, indicate a significantly greater number of items selected by high television (TV) viewers comparedwith low television viewers.

E.J. Boyland, J.C.G. Halford / Appetite 62 (2013) 236–241 239

willingness towards tasting a novel healthy food (Kotler, 2007). Ina recent study, children were significantly more likely to prefer thetaste of and choose foods that featured popular cartoon characters(such as Shrek and Dora the Explorer) compared to the same foodswithout the characters demonstrating for the first time, the effectof licensed characters on taste preference and product choice (Ro-berto, Baik, Harris, & Brownell, 2010).

Food manufacturers spend substantial sums of money on adver-tising campaigns to promote sales (Henderson & Kelly, 2005) in thebelief that exposure to advertising affects behaviour. There is con-siderable evidence that food preferences and eating behaviour aremodified by food advert exposure and branding.

Advertising impacts on children’s food preferences

The term ‘food preference’ in this context refers to ‘‘stated pref-erences’’, i.e. children’s responses when asked about their ‘‘foodlikes’’ after stimuli exposure, whereas food intake (discussed inthe next section) reflects ‘‘revealed preferences’’, i.e. what is ob-served as a result of real decisions on food.

Using a food preference checklist that was first described byBlundell and Rogers (1980), Halford et al. (2008a) demonstratedthat television food advertisement exposure can produce an obes-ogenic food preference response in normal weight children that istypically found in overweight and obese children. Children whohabitually watch more television are also more susceptible to theeffects of television food advertising, showing an enhanced prefer-ence (particularly for branded foods) following food advert expo-sure compared to children who watch less television (Boylandet al., 2011a) (see Fig. 2).

Furthermore, Borzekowski & Robinson’s (2001) much cited ran-domized, controlled trial showed that children who saw a video-tape with embedded food commercials were significantly morelikely to select the advertised product than children who had notseen the commercials. Robinson, Borzekowski, Matheson, &Kraemer 2007 also reported that children preferred the taste offood and drink items displaying the McDonalds branded packagingto identical products in matched, but unbranded, packaging. Thiswas true even of items that were not available for purchase atMcDonalds at the time, such as carrot sticks.

Advertising impacts on children’s food intake

Using a within-participants paradigm in a cross-sectionalexperimental study, Halford, Gillespie, Brown, Pontin, and Dovey(2004) found that exposure to food advertising increased food

intake in all children (see Fig. 3). This finding was later replicatedin 5–7 year old children (Halford et al., 2007) (see Fig. 4). Interest-ingly, a further study demonstrated that not only did foodadvertising exposure produce a substantial and significant increasein caloric intake (of high fat and/or sweet energy-dense snacks) inall children, but also that this increase in intake was largest in theobese children (Halford et al., 2008b). This suggests that over-weight and obese children are more responsive to food promotion,and that such promotion specifically stimulated the intake of en-ergy-dense snacks (Halford et al., 2008b). It is important to notethat the foods offered to children taking part in these studies werenot the same items that were represented in the food adverts theywere exposed to. Therefore the effect of food advertising is not lim-ited to increasing intake of the particular item being advertised;rather it is a beyond-brand effect stimulating the consumption ofall snack foods on offer.

However, advertisements for healthier food products have alsobeen shown to have an impact. Both Dixon, Scully, Wakefield,White, & Crawford (2007) and Beaudoin, Fernandez, Wall, & Farley(2007) found that adverts for nutritious foods promoted positiveattitudes and beliefs concerning these foods. However, personalitytraits may be a selective barrier to children’s responsiveness to

Fig. 4. The mean (±SE) amount of food eaten by the normal weight children and theobese and overweight children in the two advertisement conditions (from Halfordet al., 2007).

240 E.J. Boyland, J.C.G. Halford / Appetite 62 (2013) 236–241

healthy eating messages. Dovey, Taylor, Stow, Boyland, & Halford(2011) found that although all children over consumed in responseto unhealthy food adverts; children with low levels of food neo-phobia (fear of novel foods) appeared to respond to healthy foodmessages whilst children with higher levels of food neophobiadid not.

Conclusion

In conclusion, children are exposed to extensive marketingactivity through a variety of media and non-broadcast sources atall stages of their development. Its impact is readily demonstratedby their brand recognition, and its influence on eating behaviour(total intake and food choice) has been robustly shown in a num-ber of recent studies with a variety of experimental paradigms.Whilst some regulation has been introduced in the UK to governthe advertising of HFSS foods to try to reduce these impacts, ques-tion marks remain over the effectiveness of the rules in their cur-rent form. As it has been estimated that the number ofoverweight children aged 3–11 years could be reduced by 18% witha ban on HFSS food advertising (Chou, Rashad, & Grossman, 2008),it seems that an opportunity is being missed by the UK and othercountries to make a clear and decisive step towards protectingthe health of our young people from ubiquitous and irresponsiblefood marketing.

Whilst the effects of advertising through newer forms of mediahave not yet been analysed extensively, it is likely that their influ-ence on purchasing and consumption is similarly noteworthy. Asyoung people tend to be avid users of new media, these marketingeffects will contribute significantly to the dietary preferences ofchildren as well as sustaining the brand message promoted inmore traditional advertising forms. Whilst much of the research fo-cus has been on the negative consequences of marketing activityon children’s diets, the potential for health promotion remains lar-gely under investigated and under exploited. Harnessing the powerof advertising avenues in order to encourage the uptake of health-ier dietary choices may be a useful tool in the fight against risinglevels of childhood obesity across the globe.

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