MAM
Food marketing aimed at kids influences poor nutritional choices: IOM study
MUMBAI: Food and beverage marketing targeted at children ages 12 and under leads them to ask for and consume high-calorie, low-nutrient products, says a new report from the US Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. The report offers the most comprehensive review to date of the scientific evidence on the influence of food marketing on diets of children and youth.
Popular cartoon characters such as SpongeBob, Scooby-Doo and the princesses in Disney features should be used to endorse healthy foods only, the Institute of Medicine said. While SpongeBob SquarePants has been used to advertise spinach, he has also been used to market ice cream, candy and brownies.
The Institute, in its report said that media and entertainment industries should incorporate storylines that promote healthful eating into programs, films, and games. The government should consider the use of awards and tax incentives that encourage companies to develop and promote healthier products for young people.
The study said that since dietary preferences and eating patterns form early in life and set the stage for an individual’s long-term health prospects, significant changes are needed to reshape children’s awareness of healthy dietary choices.
Companies must offer kids more foods and beverages that are lower in calories, fat, salt and sugar and higher in nutrients.
Noting that many factors shape children’s dietary habits and that leadership from both the public and the private sectors will be needed to redirect the nation’s focus toward healthier products, the committee also called on the government to enhance nutritional standards, incentives, and public policies to promote the marketing of healthier foods and beverages.
The report called on schools, parents, and the media to develop and enforce marketing standards that support healthy diets. And if voluntary efforts by the industry fails to successfully shift the emphasis of television advertising during children’s programming away from high-calorie, low-nutrient products to healthier fare, legislation should be enacted to mandate this change on both broadcast and cable television, the study said.
The institute also recommended the creation of a rating system and food labeling to convey nutritional value. Companies spent an estimated $10 billion to market foods, beverages, and meals to US children and youth in 2004, and four of the top 10 items that children ages 8 to 12 say they can buy without parental permission are either foods or beverages.
“Current food and beverage marketing practices put kids’ long-term health at risk. If America’s children and youth are to develop eating habits that help them avoid early onset of diet-related chronic diseases, they have to reduce their intake of high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks, fast foods, and sweetened drinks, which make up a high proportion of the products marketed to kids. And this is an ‘all hands on deck’ issue. Parents have a central role in the turnaround required, but so do the food, beverage, and restaurant industries,” said Institute of Medicine committee chair and senior scholar J. Michael McGinnis.
McGinnis also said that there was a sense of urgency because of the childhood obesity epidemic. About 31 per cent of US kids are overweight or at risk of becoming so, increasing their risk of developing a host of health problems.
The report also added that the growth in new food products directed to kids was been huge, from 52 introduced in 1994 to nearly 500 introduced last year.
Findings about marketing’s influence
The committee assessed hundreds of relevant studies and reviewed evidence from more than 120 of the best designed to determine what effects marketing may have on children’s diets and health. Most of these studies focused only on television advertising, a shortcoming that should be addressed in future research, given that marketing strategies are rapidly evolving and now employ many tactics beyond television advertising, including Internet marketing, mobile phone ads, and product placements in video games and other media.
For the most part, the committee did not have access to the substantial body of proprietary market research data held by marketing firms and food, beverage, and restaurant companies.
The report added that available studies were too limited to determine whether television advertising is a direct cause of obesity among children. However, the statistical association between ad viewing and obesity is strong. Even a small influence would amount to a substantial impact when spread across the entire population, the report notes.
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JioStar study with BARC and Nielsen finds TV and digital ads reach different audiences during T20 World Cup
JioStar’s T20 World Cup data shows cross-screen duplication below 10 per cent, setting the stage for a blockbuster IPL
MUMBAI: The numbers are in, and they are striking. During the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, television and digital advertising campaigns barely stepped on each other’s toes. Cross-screen audience duplication stayed below 10 per cent across every participating campaign, a finding that upends the assumption that brands paying for both screens are largely paying twice to reach the same eyeballs.
JioStar, the media giant that broadcast the tournament across television and digital platforms, on Tuesday unveiled the findings from BARC | Nielsen One Ads, a cross-screen measurement solution deployed for the first time at scale during the World Cup. The verdict: TV and digital are not cannibalising each other. They are reaching fundamentally different people.
The study found that digital platforms are delivering genuinely incremental audiences, viewers who would not have been reached on television alone, while enabling more precise targeting across devices. The combined effect gives advertisers what the industry has long craved: a unified, deduplicated four-screen audience that marries the blunt-instrument scale of television with the surgical precision of digital.
“The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 has once again demonstrated the power of scale in live sports, and these findings take it a step further by quantifying how that scale translates across screens,” said Anup Govindan, head of sales, sports, JioStar. “With less than 10 per cent duplication, we now have clear, measurable evidence of how integrated planning delivers both efficiency and impact for advertisers. As we look ahead to IPL 2026, this sets a strong foundation for brands to plan with greater confidence, leveraging cross-screen strategies to maximise reach and effectiveness at scale.”
The methodology behind the findings stitches together two measurement giants. BARC India supplies linear television data; Nielsen brings its digital measurement capabilities across connected TV, mobile and desktop. The result is a single, deduplicated view of campaign reach and frequency, the kind of unified currency that advertisers have been demanding as audiences scatter across screens.
The timing is deliberate. As consumption habits splinter, viewers flicking between the living-room set, the smartphone on the sofa and the laptop at the kitchen table, the case for unified measurement has grown urgent. A brand buying a 30-second slot on Star Sports and a pre-roll on JioCinema can now know, with some rigour, whether those two buys are actually compounding their reach or merely doubling their spend.
JioStar, BARC India and Nielsen say the learnings will directly inform cross-screen strategies for upcoming tentpole events. IPL 2026 is next. If the World Cup data holds, and there is little reason to think it will not, brands that treat television and digital as a single, coordinated buy rather than two separate line items will arrive at the auction with a sharper pencil and a cleaner brief. In India’s ferociously competitive advertising market, that edge is everything.
