Unethical Food Marketing: A preview

By

Ekta Jain

Senior Lecturer

Institute Of Management Studies, Roorkee

9997208380, 9719355572

Unethical Food Marketing: A preview

Abstract

Marketing is the tool, which could have direct influence on its consumers. Therefore marketers should owe the responsibility towards its consumers. With the liberalization of economies MNC food chains are entering are entering in different cultures with their international name and services. Fast food market has grown faster than most other segments. Fast food has been proved as the most hazardous element for both physical and mental health of every individual irrespective of age, gender, nationality etc. Companies offering such foods are using lucrative marketing methods to promote their unhealthy food items. Children could be easily influenced and promoted as loyal consumers. It is the study of 400 children of different regions, society and culture to generate a view regarding their attitude towards the awareness of source of unhealthy food. Being an individual, it is the responsibility of each of us to realize about ill effects of such food items and to take some result oriented actions towards such activities.

Keywords: Consumer, Ethics, Fast food, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Market Segmentation

Introduction

With the beginning of the 19th century, when people work for more than half of the whole 24 hours of a day, the thing, which got highly affected, is the food and eating habits. Marketers took the advantage and with the evolution of the Industrial age market forces have redefined the needs and wants of the consumers in every sphere of their life including their food habits. They designed their strategies to change the lifestyle and likings or disliking of the consumers by creating need for those products which were not required till now. Changing psychology has led to redefine the needs of the society for convenient products and their ill impact on health cannot be ignored. Marketers for the sake of their profit and success are playing with the health of the consumers, which has shown the negative effects on the health of the consumers.There is a direct link between advertising and its influence on children and family spending. It influences diet habits particularly it creates a tendency to buy unhealthy food items and also creates conflicts due to child influence on family spending.

Marketing

Marketing concept was born out of the awareness that marketing starts with the determination of consumer wants and ends with the satisfaction of those wants[1].Marketing is the process of creating or directing an organization to be successful in selling a product or service that people not only desire, but are willing to buy. Marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of shortest definition of marketing is “meeting needs profitably”.[2]

Marketing is a planned process, to make life long customers, which starts at an early age till he/she becomes a loyal customer. Normally child became target customers at the age of 1.5 or 2, when they start recognizing shapes, images and colours. Advertising gradually builds relationship with child and over a period of time child becomes consumer and then loyal consumer. Generally children enjoy advertisements and get influenced easily.

Ethics refers to system of moral principles- a sense of right and wrong, good and bad of actions and the motives and the consequences of these actions. Business firm’s ethics is the study of good and evil, right and wrong and just and unjust actions of business man.[3]Ethical system reflects prevailing values, especially those of a moral nature. Corporate codes of conduct have been established as a method of fostering ethical behavior among employees.[4] Ethical marketing is the marketing which provides an honest and factual representation of a product, delivered in a framework of cultural and social values for the consumer. It promotes qualitative benefits to its customers, which other similar companies, products or services fail to recognize and when marketers fails for such presentations we term it as unethical marketing.

Food & its Importance

‘Good nutrition is important for all, especially for those younger than five years as these years are demanding for the developing child. They are the years in which children acquire many of the physical attributes and the social and psychological structures for life and learning’. (British Medical Association 2005). According to World Health Organisation 22 million children in the world under the age of five years are severely overweight.

“We are what we eat" is an old proverb. Our nutritional status, health, physical and mental faculties depend on the food we eat and how we eat it. Access to good quality food has been man's main endeavor from the earliest days of human existence. A healthy diet in childhood can help to prevent anemia, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and obesity in later life.

Ill effects of Fast Food

Obesity in children arises because of the foods that are high in fructose and fat and low in fiber. Such insulinogenic food increases the pleasure of chemical dopamine. i.e., child wants to eat more of same type of food and reduces the effects of the hormonal leptons. i.e., Child wants to eat more and work less.[5]

1. The study, published in the January 2007 issue of Public Health Nutrition, found that the home food environment of families who ate fast food for dinner more than three times a week consisted of more chips and soda pop and less fruits and vegetables than families who ate fast food less than three times a week. A higher frequency of fast food dinners was also associated with obesity and a higher body mass index (BMI) in adults.

2. Researchers have shown a correlation between fast food, weight gain, and insulin resistance in what appears to be the first long-term study on this subject. The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study by Mark Pereira, Ph.D., assistant professor in epidemiology, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and David Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Obesity Program at Children's Hospital Boston, reported that fast food increases the risk of obesity diabetes.

3. Fast food is dangerous for the health. They are responsible for several types of diseases like, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis etc.

4. According to European Medical Journal Fast food not only causes negative effects to our body, they also affects negatively our behaviour and makes us mentally sick.

5. Fast food also affects directly our work quality. People consuming such food regularly are found to less efficient than those are who are not regular consumer of these food items.

6. According to a study held at ChicagoUniversity, Junk food directly affects the mental ability of an individual. Fresh and healthy food helps in developing the positive metal and physical status of an individual.

7. WHO predicts by 2030 India will have 80 million diabetes, globally it would increase to 366 million.

8. Researches indicate that fast food consumption leads to excess energy intake and, in turn, increased risk of overweight and obesity[6]

9. Globally, there are more than 1 billion adults who are overweight and at least 300 million of them are clinically obese, while 800 million suffer from malnutrition (WHO 2004).

10. Globally, there are more than 1 billion adults who are overweight and at least 300 million of them are clinically obese, while 800 million suffer from malnutrition (WHO 2004).

Market Segmentation

Market Segmentation is the process of disaggregating the total market for a given product into a number of sub markets. Following the Liberalisation and globalisation, MNC Food chains like, McDonalds, Wimpy, KFC etc are entering in different countries and establishing their market of food successfully.They bring their culture along with them and spread it widely and eating habits are one of them.

Parents: These food companies are targetting parents to buy these products for their children.Their target is the young generation which is influenced by the western culture for selling their products.Though parents are aware of the fact that these products are not good for their children they are unable to divert their child for taking these food items, because marketers have successfully influenced their basic target market that is, children.

Children: Today children act as main buyers in a family.It is the youngest individual of the family which influences the buying decisions of the family and when it comes th the food items they really dominate the decisions to be taken. Marketers are studying the psychology of the children, their grasping power, fantacies attractions etc to be successful among their target market.

Habits framed during childhood are carried through adulthood. Marketers and advertisers are well aware of the fact such consumers are the loyal consumers of future and are less likely to switch over.[7]

Middle class has emerged as prominent consumer of such products.Instant coffee, soft drinks have taken a regular place in their daily menu. Earlier people used to have milk, cereals, chapati etc which proved to be good for the health inspite of Unhealthy food products from food industry eg. Milk powder, chingwm. Cold drinks, burgers etc are attracting young generation, which gives invitation to various diseses like obesity , cholestrol etc.

Marketing Strategies

Strategy is the game plan for getting the goals of a business unit.[8]Urbanization has played a key role in the successs of these easy availability of food items.Joint families are breaking and nuclear families are on the high.More and more women are working to improve their lifestyle and for other reasons.Having less time for their home and especially for kitchen, they need time time saving and convenient sources to win the battle against time. Busy schedules and stressed life of working mothers entice them to buy the food products which has easy availability despite of the fact that they not safe for the health. Such products are mostly sold on the planks of ‘save time’ or ‘make your job easy’or ‘enjoy a new recipe’which blends the life style profile of the neo middle class woman- whether working or housewife.[9]

Observation of a product in public tends to encourage social acceptance and reinforcement, resulting in the product being adopted more rapidly with less resistence. Marketers are using this tact to intricate consumers widely.

1. They are providing quick services or free home delivery or both.

2. Marketers are using tactics to entice children and to make them feel more inferior or less cool, if they are not buying a certain food product.

3. They are advertising their products with different myths like if children eat Boomer chingwm, the super hero will help them to come out of the problems or people should eat Maggi Rice mania instead of Rice.Children are fascinated to these products.

4. They are also misguiding parents through their misleading advertisements. Eg. Junior Horlicks. Mothers should not run after cheir small kids for proper nutrition through proper meals, they can opt time saving and convenient supplements for them. Children would learn unhealthy food habits from the young stage only and further they will demand for the same.

5. They are creating illusions as these food items are status symbol and motivating people to buy their food items like chocolates etc inspite of the trational sweets during festivals etc.

6. Companies are using movie characters, super heroes or cartoon characters in their packaging to promote their products.

7. Companies are introducing several schemes to attract children to buy not only their food items but also encourage their parents for this food items.eg. McDonalds offers free gifts inside their happy meals.

8. Companies are developing the taste of the children by providing them number of varieties in a single product.

Taking advantages of the innocense of the children they show their unhealthy products many times healthier than natural ones. e.g. People are preffering packed fruit juice rather than fresh because of their easy availability and promotion techniques.

Role of Consumers: It is not only the duty of the marketers or the business world to look for the welfare of the consumers, government and consumers themselves should also realize their responsibilities. It is the social responsibility of consumers to protect the interest of the society. In India, Government has provided six rights to consumers: Right to Safety, Right to Information, Right to Choice, Right to Representation, Right to Redress, and Right to Consumer Education.Consumers can have a well-organized movement to protect consumers from unfair practices of the producers and marketers, and to enhance the rights of the consumers in relation to producers and marketers. In many cases, the government of the societies concerned is also on the side of consumers in this raging battle.

Objective of the study

Children are the most precious resource of any country. With the increased levels of income and decreased number of children along with the shrivel size of families, the thing which has highly effected negatively is the food habits materialism is on the high and morals are loosing their value.

1)Marketing and its impact on children

2)To study the impact of unhealthy food on child health

Research, Methodology and Scope of the study

This is a study of 400 children with different educational backgrounds. The study moves from the children aged 3 – 18 and above years of age. The study tries to provide answers to the changing mindset regarding eating habits and its effects on the health of consumers, especially children.

The analysis tries to focus on the changing role of values, perception, attitude and acceptance of marketing as a tool. It is a study to analyze the role of marketing in influencing eating habits of consumers in the changing scenario in a developing country like India from a different point of view. Random sampling method is used for this study.

Out of 400 respondents we have collected data from the metro cities i.e., in and around Delhi and cities of Uttrakhand state. 200 were from the NCR and 200 from Roorkee. Data has been collected through personal Interviews and questionnaire.

Findings of the study :

Table I

MODE

AGE / TV/Other Ads / Parents / Society/Friends / Restaurant
3-7 (200) / 125 / 25 / 35 / 15
8-12 (200) / 120 / 25 / 50 / 5
13-18 (200) / 120 / 20 / 50 / 10
18 Above (200) / 105 / 15 / 75 / 5
Total / 470 / 85 / 210 / 35

1. As the age increases, the role of TV and other ads as a source of information decreases while the role of friends increases, but still it is more than 50%

2. Similarly, the role of parents also decreases. Parents play an important role in the life of a child and this ratio again falls with the increase of age, as their influence decreases with the increased age of child.

3. The role of society and friends was found to be increasing with increasing age. No doubt society and friends play an integral part in ones life and influences even taste preferences.

4. Restaurant is at the lowest preference

Table II

No. of children

Source / Total Children / Delhi/NCR / Roorkee
TV/Other Ads / 470 / 250 / 220
Parents / 85 / 40 / 45
Society/Friends / 210 / 90 / 120
Restaurant / 35 / 20 / 15
Total / 800 / 400 / 400
  1. Out of the total 800 respondents 470 children preferred for T.V. / other ads. 250 were from Delhi/NCR and 220 from Roorkee.
  2. 40 respondents from Delhi/NCR and 45 from Roorkee quoted parents as their source of information.
  3. Society and friends shows their influence more on the children of Roorkee, which is 120 out of 210 and 90 from Delhi/NCR.

Recommendations

There are ways, which can be applied to move away children from unhealthy food habits and to induce them towards healthy and nutritious food. Based on the discussion with the parents and also with the respondents we have tried to find out some of the ways, to induce nutritious eating habits to the children:

1. We learn what we see.Children need to see adults demonstrating healthy eating and drinking habits in order to develop their own.

2. Creativity can be shown by providing variety of nutritious food.

3. Parents should invest their time and interest to develop their eating habits.

4. At least once in a day, whether, breakfast, lunch or dinner should be taken together.

5. Involve children in purchasing food items.

6. Invest some time for developing healthy eating habits.

7. Elders should act as role models for the young generation. They need to improve their eating habits to tranfer them into the young generation.