Food/Beverage Marketing

Super-Sized Lunchables Solicits Teens to Upload Risky User-Generated Content

Feet to the Fire, Food/Beverage Marketing, Injury Reduction, Obesity /

by Cara Wilking, J.D. Seeking to capitalize on the public’s insatiable appetite for Youtube stunt videos, Kraft Foods has teamed up with Rob Dyrdek, the host of MTV’s Ridiculousness, to market its recently released Lunchables Uploaded line of lunch kits. Marketed to parents as a way to “Give them more of what they love,” Lunchables […]

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PHAI Publishes Legal Issue Brief on Digital Viral Food Marketing to Kids

Food/Beverage Marketing, Press release, Publications, State Profiles /

Food companies used viral digital marketing tactics, such as “tell-a-friend” web campaigns, to induce children to share e-mail addresses of their friends and spread brand advertising of unhealthy foods among their peers.  Even very young children are targeted by these campaigns, which may be considered unfair and deceptive and in violation of state consumer protection laws.

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Pepsi’s “Live for Now” campaign is the Joe Camel of soda marketing to youth

Feet to the Fire, Food/Beverage Marketing /

[Adapted from Richard A. Daynard’s presentation to the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools’ Agriculture and Food Law section, January 5, 2013.] Soda consumption is a major contributor to adolescent obesity.1 Fortunately, soda consumption has been declining recently,2 presumably as a result of adverse media attention and policy initiatives like the ban

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PHAI’s Cara Wilking on updating children’s online privacy protection

Food/Beverage Marketing, News /

It has been nearly 15 years since Congress enacted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).  In that time, marketing in a digital world has become ubiquitous and, often, indistinguishable from other content.  An essential part of this transformation of marketing involves providing a a surprisingly wide variety of information about the users to advertisers

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Nestlé’s nutritional advice recommends avoiding Kraft Lunchables, but Nestlé puts its candy in Lunchables anyway

Feet to the Fire, Food/Beverage Marketing /

This week, as millions of American children return to classrooms and lunchrooms, moms and dads are trying to sort out which pre-made food products are conducive to learning and a healthy diet and which are flashy, sophisticated packages of junk food. Nestlé, which deems itself “the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company” has teamed

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PHAI joins the Center for Digital Democracy and others in complaint to FTC over children’s websites’ “Tell-A-Friend” tactics

1 Comment / Feet to the Fire, Food/Beverage Marketing, Legal Filings, Press release /

Today the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston has joined a coalition of children’s, health, privacy and consumer advocacy organizations in a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against several children’s websites for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The offending children’s websites use a

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For Many Living With Limb Loss, “Open Happiness” Doesn’t Ring True

Feet to the Fire, Food/Beverage Marketing, Uncategorized /

by Cara Wilking, JD As part of its 2012 Olympic Games marketing blitz, the Coca-Cola Company has assembled a “Coca-Cola 8-pack of Athletes” to  “serve as Coca-Cola ‘Ambassadors of Active Living’ to help encourage and inspire people to lead active, balanced lives.”[1] This group includes Jessica Long, a 2012 U.S. Paralympic Swimming Team nominee.[2] Ms. Long was born

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Health Groups Ask Federal Trade Commission to Investigate Merck’s Use of “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” Characters to Market Children’s Claritin®

Feet to the Fire, Injury Reduction, Press release, Uncategorized /

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Cara Wilking, 617-373-5699 Today, the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, joined by 10 other organizations, sent a letter to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking that it investigate Merck & Co. Inc.’s  Madagascar 3-themed marketing campaign for its flagship pediatric

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PHAI’s Friedman and Gottlieb Co-author: “Soda and Tobacco Industry Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns: How Do They Compare?” in PLoS Medicine

1 Comment / Food/Beverage Marketing, Press release, Publications, Tobacco /

PHAI senior staff attorney Lissy Friedman and executive director Mark Gottlieb collaborated with Lori Dorfman, Andrew Cheyne and Asiya Wadud of the Berkeley Media Studies Group to produce this article published today in PLoS Medicine. Soda companies’ PR campaigns are bad for health: Health advocates need to organize strong public health campaigns to educate the

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The Hidden Energy Costs of School Beverage Vending Machines

Feet to the Fire, Food/Beverage Marketing /

PHAI has produced a FACT SHEET detailing state-by-state electricity costs of traditional cold beverage vending machines. A traditional cold beverage vending machine consumes an estimated 3000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year (kWh/yr). That translates to an average annual energy cost of $313 per machine. Even more energy efficient machines still use between 1200 and 1500 kWh/yr. When multiplied over

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