How corporations target consumers through deceptive marketing of unhealthy foods, beverages

How corporations target consumers through deceptive marketing of unhealthy foods, beverages

·          Report seeks global marketing restrictions to prevent corporate influence on policymakers, protect children from exploitation

By Edu Abade

A new report released by the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) has revealed details on how food and beverages corporations such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nestlé and PepsiCo are exerting influence to gain privileged spaces at policy-making tables and using deceptive marketing tactics to promote their unhealthy ultra-processed foods to vulnerable populations globally.

The report titled: Marketing Exposed: A Global Public Health Threat For Food Policy, reveals how harmful marketing practices are shaping food environments and affecting populations with detrimental short and long-term health effects, burdening States with high economic and social costs. This is especially evident when corporations market directly to children and adolescents, who lack the developmental maturity to distinguish advertisements from entertaining or educational content.

Managing Director and Vice President of Food and Nutrition Policy at GHAI, Verónica Schoj, said: “Our society is so inundated with unhealthy food marketing that we no longer recognise how manipulative and insidious it has become. The harmful and sophisticated marketing practices are promoting an unhealthier world, destroying cultural diets, creating lifelong eating preferences and damaging the health of vulnerable populations around the world.

“This report shows why there is such a critical need for governments to promote, preserve and prepare good nutrition for everyone by advocating strong marketing regulations free from industry influence and to protect children and adolescents from commercial exploitation.”

The report contains a qualitative analysis of about 300 examples obtained through public sources from over 52 countries, highlighting the different industry trends observed. It outlines the potential damage done when corporations use marketing to deceive and influence globally:

Misleading marketing generates a harmful domino effect by creating unhealthy food environments, burdening countries with sicker populations, and other negative results.

“It extends beyond advertising, promotion and sponsorship to include corporate washing that allows the industry to establish itself at the policymaking table while influencing vulnerable populations.

“It is aggressive, insidious and everywhere, it enables the industry to influence what consumers eat, displacing traditional foods from different cultures and it puts children and adolescents at risk of becoming victims of commercial exploitation due to the corporate saturation of unhealthy products in the market,” it stated.

The report is the third industry account produced by GHAI. The 2020 report titled: Facing Two Pandemics: How Big Food Undermined Public Health In The COVID-19 Era, received global recognition for increasing awareness of big food companies that are seizing the Coronavirus pandemic to promote their ultra-processed foods.

In 2021, it reports titled: Behind The Labels: Big Food’s War On Healthy Food Policies, also demonstrated how the food and beverages industry has aggressively fought to weaken and undermine Front-of-Package Labeling Policies (FOPL) globally.

The 2022 report exposes concrete worldwide examples of how food and beverage corporations are leveraging marketing strategies at the expense of public health. The report aims to urgently eradicate the dangerous consequences of misleading food marketing.

“While we wait for comprehensive and sensible marketing regulations, health and cardiovascular diseases and related economic and social costs will continue to skyrocket. The time is now for real accountability that should not involve corporate interference during policy-making,” Schoj said.

GHAI supports civil society organisations advocating public health policies that reduce deaths and diseases through a proven, systematic approach, customised by local partners, to deliver health policy wins in countries around the world in diverse political systems. Through the Food policy programme, GHAI supports advocacy campaigns aimed at creating healthier food environments.