A new study, just published in The Journal of Pediatrics, has found that television food advertisements can have more impact on a child’s food choices than advice from their own parents. Dr Christopher Ferguson and colleagues at Texas A&M International University, in the US, studied 75 children ranging in age from three to five years. All of the children watched two cartoons, with commercials shown between each cartoon. Half of the children watched a commercial for French fries, and the other... ...Read more »

In a world-first Australian experiment, Coca-Cola is replacing the “Coke” branding with one of 150 of Australia’s most popular personal first names for its next summer marketing campaign. The company has allocated 268 million bottles and cans for personalisation. The campaign will include the use of Youtube and Facebook, encouraging people to promote the personalised bottles and broadcast their own names via SMS for display on a major advertising sign in Sydney’s King’s... ...Read more »

The Cancer Council of New South Wales has renewed calls for tighter regulations on using promotional characters on food packaging. It claims that nearly 75 per cent of promotional characters on Australian food packets spruik products that are high in fat, salt, and sugar. Research conducted by Cancer Council NSW with the University of Sydney’s Prevention Research Collaboration found that the market was “saturated” with licensed merchandise characters, such as cartoon characters, promoting less... ...Read more »

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has accused some of Australia’s best-known chicken brands of making misleading promotional claims for sell their chicken products. The ACCC has instituted proceedings in the Federal Court against Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd and Bartter Enterprises Pty Ltd which supply chickens nationally under the Steggles brand, as well as Turi Foods, which supplies La Ionica brand meat chickens in New South Wales and Victoria, and the Australian Chicken Meat... ...Read more »

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has instituted legal proceedings in the Federal Court, Melbourne, against two Victorian meat retailers alleging false and misleading representations about meat claimed to originate from King Island, Tasmania. The ACCC alleges that Hooker Meats Pty Ltd trading as ‘Peninsula Bulk Meats’, misrepresented in newspaper advertisements and on their website that meat they supplied was grown on King Island. The ACCC also alleges that Kingisland... ...Read more »

Food manufacturers including Nestlé, Hershey and Kraft Foods have published their own uniform guidelines on the nutritional content of products advertised to US children. The criteria, published yesterday, are an attempt to regain the initiative over the issue from the US government, which has put forward plans for criteria for the food industry to follow. The US government, which is facing rising levels of obesity, published its set of “voluntary principles” in April and invited public... ...Read more »

Children’s exposure to television advertising for unhealthy fast food has not changed since the introduction of industry self-regulation, and fast food ads are significantly more frequent overall, according to new research from the University of Sydney. The research, led by dietician Lana Hebden and published in the Medical Journal of Australia today, analysed all TV ads broadcast during a four-day sample period, in both May 2009 and April 2010. The Australian Quick Service Restaurant Industry... ...Read more »

Packaging and labelling company ProScales has announced the launch of its new deli labelling system, AdPro, which prints shopper-marketing directed ads on deli labels. The company says its new technology has shown significant improvement in customer purchasing patterns, after being trialled at Adelaide gourmet retailer Il Mercato. AdPro, a software package, allows a variety of existing hardware to print extra information on deli, bakery and pre-pack labels, such as promotional offers, competitions... ...Read more »

Cadbury has apologised to Naomi Campbell after its Dairy Milk Bliss adverts “upset” the supermodel. The print campaign for Dairy Milk Bliss featured the slogan: “Move over Naomi, there’s a new diva in town”. After Campbell threatened to sue the company, the chocolate manufacturer published an apology on its website on Friday (3 June). Cadbury said that it was “seriously sorry” and that it was not its intention to “offend Naomi, her family or anybody... ...Read more »

Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges have announced a new campaign aimed at double-digit growth for the brand. The campaign, designed by Stuart Alexander, marks a switch from TV advertising, which has seen steady growth for the brand, to an “aggressive below-the-line marketing campaign, driven by experiential sampling”. The campaign introduces two new “Fisherwoman”, in green (Fresh) and hot red latex (Feisty) ‘waders’, to represent both the Fresh Mint and Original... ...Read more »