Читать книгу Chocolate Busters: The Easy Way to Kick It! - Jason Vale, Jason Vale - Страница 22

I think it’s fair to say then that when it comes to marketing, the chocolate big guns will do just about anything to help sell their wares, and in an industry not renowned for its scruples, it’s no surprise that their main marketing focus seems to be aimed at those whose brains are most susceptible to the emotional hook – children! Unlike the tobacco companies, who at least had to pretend they weren’t targeting kids (although that’s hard to believe when you see Joe Camel), the chocolate industry can do it with impunity.

Research carried out by the Foods Standards Agency found a direct link between overweight children and TV advertising. This may be pretty obvious to you and me, especially when you think that food is by far the most commonly advertised product category and given the four ‘food’ products dominating this advertising are ‘soft’ drinks, pre-sugared cereals, confectionery snacks (including chocolate) and fast-foods, but the FDA needed a full study to see what was happening. As of October 2003 the top two food products advertised to children were for chocolate, the number one spot being held by Kinder chocolate – a brand which makes the extremely popular children’s ‘Kinder Surprise’ chocolate egg. The Kinder Surprise Egg, in terms of marketing to children, is quite ingenious. Young children love surprises and they love toys. The people at Kinder managed to link the intense feelings of anticipation and pleasure with chocolate in one easy hit. This kind ‘er’ direct advertising aimed at children is bad enough, but not only do mass-market chocolate companies use ‘fun’ and ‘happiness’ as an emotional pull to lure children in and put toys in chocolate eggs, they also deliberately place their products at the height of the average ten-year-old, and link chocolate to feel-good films and Disney characters, and make sure their bars are on sale in all major children’s theme parks, and, and, and … Be under no illusion that whenever you see chocolate, crisp, sweet or fast-food companies raising money to promote ‘Books for Schools’ or ‘Get Active’ or such like, that they are doing your kids a favour, the main reason why chocolate companies sponsor schools is:

THEY WANT THEM AS LIFELONG CUSTOMERS!

To achieve this not only will they have posters up in schools and sometimes provide ‘free’ football strips for the kids with their product plastered all over it (how kind!), but also they often arrange ‘exclusive contacts’ to put chocolate vending machines in the schools. That way the good feeling of ‘having a break’ from class gets linked to a chocolate bar. This message is then reinforced as the children go through life with several Derren Brown moments, such as ‘Have A Break, Have A Kit Kat’, and in no time at all a strong relationship with the product has been established.