Submitted by Jonathan Rosenblum on
While federal law provides only minimum guidelines for healthy school meals (and snack foods and branded beverages proliferate in school vending machines), state-based activism has the potential to push standards higher. That's the cautionary message delivered by food marketing critic Michele Simon at last week's 29th Annual National Food Policy Conference.
Ah, the sounds of School Year 2006-2007: the clatter of coins going down the pop machines to let loose a POWERade or an aspartame-sweetened diet soda -- maybe even a bottle of juice or milk. The rip of a new box of "reduced-sugar" Fruit Loops (or Frosted Flakes or Apple Jacks) at breakfast.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Under a tough new code of ethics all staff and students at Stanford University's medical school, hospitals and clinics will not be able to accept any gifts from drug company representatives. The new policy comes into effect on October 1.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Should "viral" videos, produced and placed online by marketers but circulated by amused viewers, be labeled as advertising?
Submitted by Jonathan Rosenblum on
Governments should learn a lesson from tobacco marketeers and restrict junk food advertising aimed at children, says a prominent obesity specialist. Boyd Swinburn, professor of population health at Deakin University in Australia, was one of several members of a global task force on obesity who called for international standards on advertising food products to children.
Submitted by Jonathan Rosenblum on
Americans may tire quickly of some pharmaceutical PR, but they've got nowhere to turn (certainly not in bed) when it comes to a new campaign sponsored by the makers of a sleep-fighting medication, Provigil. Drug-maker Cephalon hired Dorland Global Public Relations, which has spun consumers' disinterest in "sleepiness" into a Homeland Security-like campaign for "alertness." The trick: target employers.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Wal-Mart's new television ads promote "its health care plans, charitable contributions and positive impact on the American economy" in "unusually detailed terms." In one ad, the narrator says, "Our low prices save the average working family $2,300 a year. Which buys a lot of things -- and a whole lot of freedom." Wal-Mart's Robert McAdam stated, "These ads are more direct than anything we have done before." The New York Times' Michael Barbaro compares them to political campaign ads.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Joseph Turow summarizes how marketers are using new technologies to make it "harder than ever for audiences to escape, and resist, their advances." One practice, "seeding," blends "publicity, product placement, and public relations." Seeding can involve hiring actors for "clandestine campaigns that 'may consist of seeding chat rooms, blogs and forums with paid-for messages,'" as one marketer explained.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"With nearly 50 years in marketing, Keith Reinhard knows when a brand is in trouble," Christopher Lee writes in the Washington Post. "Even before the war in Iraq bred new resentment of the United States abroad, the country had developed an image problem, says Reinhard," who in 2004 founded Business for Diplomatic Action, to get U.S. corporations involved in public diplomacy.
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