The KFF report on advergames released yesterday has received some ad industry coverage that sounds suspiciously like (a) more coincidences and (b) getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
It comes on the eve of a Children's Now conference tomorrow, where senators including Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and several Federal Communications Commission members are expected to be critical of such targeting. [Note that they didn't miss the Nickelodeum move either.]
Advertisers and ad-group representative said food websites aimed at children remain a tiny part of the overall marketing mix, and that the reasons behind increased childhood obesity are complex.
Stephan Dahl from Middlesex University Business School in the UK sent a note about his research on advergames and gave me permission to quote from it.
In his study they looked at the websites of all the major UK food advertisers whose products have significant appeal to children (N=15). Those that included advergames (n=13) then had that content evaluated against the British Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice: Television Advertising Standards Code.
They found that 10 sites had no significant separation between content and advertising, 6 contained no obvious nutrition or health information, 10 of the sites used some form of viral marketing including offers of e-cards and other devices for users to invite their friends to the site, 6 offered downloads such as screensavers or PC games, 5 either required purchases to access the games or some purchases were otherwise required, and 8 required site registration information (5 also asked for guardian consent). “No single site of those sites included in the study appeared to show the same restraints the industry is touting in traditional advertising when developing their online activities.”
The results of this very limited study certainly indicated the need for concern from the perspective of the regulators and policymakers: While the regulators, or even the industry itself in various countries, through self-regulation, has regulated advertising to children and pledged responsible marketing to this segment, the same advertisers appear to forget the promises as soon as they are advertising online.
Unfortunately the KFF methodology did not evaluate the advergaming sites against any advertising code of ethics. It is purely a descriptive study that, absent any context, can be interpreted in any number of ways. Hopefully, the next looks at advergaming will not only review them in light of industry standards, but also in terms of engagement, influence, intentions and purchase behaviors - other areas, as Dr. Dahl points out, in which data are lacking.
Technorati Tags: Advergames, Childhood Obesity, Children's Advertising
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