#JunkFoodGames: Global sports events used to market unhealthy food and drinks to children

Consumers International has launched a social media campaign using the hashtag #JunkFoodGames to draw attention to the need for strong global action to protect and promote healthy diets.  

The Rio 2016 Olympic Games open on 5 August. Before that, on 10 June, the UEFA 2016 Euro football tournament kicks off in Europe and will be watched by millions around the world. The last ‘Euros’ in 2012 were shown by 120 broadcasters  in 200 territories, with 150 million TV viewers per match.

In 2014 Consumers International kicked up a storm on social media with its #JunkFoodWorldCup campaign. Two years on, childhood obesity has continued to climb in all regions of the world, as have sales of processed foods. Seventy million young children will be overweight or obese by 2025 if current trends continue. The global packaged food market will be worth $3.03 trillion by 2020. Much of this consists of products high in fat, saturated fat, salt, or sugar. Growth in sales is driven by marketing spend, which also increases year on year. Food companies are expected to spend $30.7 billion on ads in 2016.

International sporting events attract increased marketing spends from global companies. Estimates for global spending on TV advertising during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil were as high as US$2.3bn.

In line with current trends, companies associated with unhealthy products and brands do not just rely on TV advertising, but use a mixture of marketing techniques to cash in on sports events. Official sponsors of both the Euros and the Rio Olympics include food companies associated with unhealthy products, such as McDonald’s and Coca Cola.

An increasing proportion of unhealthy food marketing associated with major sports events is digital. During the 2012 Olympics, Coca Cola made a music video and set up its own online TV channel, ‘Beat TV’. It achieved 242 million social web impressions, 39 million impressions on Facebook and 546,000 impressions on YouTube and Beat TV. Coke also set up a global SMS platform for its marketers to engage more directly with teens. It achieved a 44% response rate and 250,000 registered users.

In claiming to target ‘teens’ Coke keeps its own pledge not to directly market any products to children under the age of 12. Coke and other companies have been repeatedly accused however, of breaking their own pledges and producing marketing that targets children aged under as well as over 12. In May 2016 campaigners in the USA published a report detailing the ways in which Coca Cola can be seen to target children under 12 around the world, including online and through sponsorship and advertising at major sporting events. Consumers International has previously called for an international code restricting the marketing of unhealthy food and drink products to children under the age of 16.

Since 2010 the World Health Organization recommends that all governments reduce the amount of marketing for unhealthy food and drink products to which children are exposed, and reduce the power of those messages.

Consumers International has repeatedly called for a Global Convention to Protect and Promote Healthy Diets that would require governments to introduce a package of policy measures designed to help consumers make healthy choices. In 2014 Consumers International published recommendations which included the restriction by governments of advertising that is likely to create an erroneous impression about a product’s health benefits, the restriction of the sponsorship of international events by companies and brands associated with unhealthy foods and beverages, and controls on cross border marketing.