How Marketers Are Making Healthy Foods More Appealing to Children

Marketers now need to make fruits and vegetables “cool” for children, as if doing something good for your body isn’t enough for youngsters these days. Although I may be appalled at the implications that makes about our culture, I do see some hope in the stress that has been applied to food companies and brands like Disney and Nickelodeon to drop the junk food advertisements marketed towards children. According to this article in Advertising Age, marketers now use “packaging gimmicks and tie-ins with children’s media properties” to win kids over with healthier foods. If that is what it takes to get kids to eat healthier let’s give it a try.

Sure, giants in the marketplace (Walmart, Target, Disney) are capitalizing on the healthy foods for children movement, but at the same time there are small companies that are jumping at the opportunity, too. These smaller companies selling goods like prepackaged olives and freeze dried fruit have small advertising budgets. They typically do small print and radio ads and focus on in-store events. This has proven to be successful enough to get their products in major retailers. This seems to be a good sign for the future health of our young people.

We do not know much of an effect this movement has had towards increased marketing of healthy foods to children. There have not been statistics published on marketing healthy foods towards children and Disney will not release their figures on their sales of branded food. Nonetheless, the preliminary success in popularity with kid-friendly fruits and veggies is refreshing. I’m glad to see Mickey Mouse doing good with the weight and power of his smiling face. That is what I call social responsibility.