Does industry self‐regulation work to protect consumers? An evaluation of the children's food and beverage advertising initiative

• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Author: Rosemary J. Avery,Aerin Brown,Alan Mathios
• Date: 01 June 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12438

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Does industry self-regulation work to protect

consumers? An evaluation of the children's

food and beverage advertising initiative

Rosemary J. Avery | Aerin Brown | Alan Mathios

Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy,

Cornell University, Ithaca, New

York, USA

Correspondence

Alan Mathios, Jeb E. Brooks School of

Public Policy, Cornell University, Ithaca,

NY, USA.

Email: adm5@cornell.edu

Abstract

The study evaluates the success of an industry self-

regulatory initiative, the Children's Food and Beverage

Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), designed to limit advertis-

ing of less nutritious foods to children that began in 2006

and implemented by pledging firms by 2013. We estimate

the nutritional profile (calories, sugar, sodium, and fiber) of

cereals that were advertised on national/local television

(approximately 170 million ads) and measure children's

exposure (over 21,000 children) to these ads for years 2001–

2013. We also examine how firms responded to the volun-

tary agreement in terms of their advertising and product

line decisions. Results reveal improvements in the nutri-

tional quality of cereal children are exposed to through

advertising, indicating the success of this self-regulatory ini-

tiative in this product category. Results also reveal the ways

in which manufacturers adapted their product line offer-

ings and ad airings in response to their CFBAI pledges.

KEYWORDS

advertising regulation, cereals, CFBAI, children, nutrition, self-

regulation

1|INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Given the current global obesity crisis, the marketing practices of food companies have received

significant scrutiny over the past few decades. Unhealthy foods advertised to children are

Received: 9 March 2021 Revised: 14 December 2021 Accepted: 28 December 2021

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12438

© 2022 American Council on Consumer Interests.

536 J Consum Aff. 2022;56:536–564.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca

viewed as particularly harmful as children are more susceptible to the effects of advertising and

less capable of understanding the persuasive nature of ad content, and U.S. children are seeing

disproportionally more food advertisements than adults (American Psychological Association,

2020; Federal Trade Commission, 2012). Research reported in Federal Trade Commission

(FTC) publications found that foods promoted to children influence their attitudes, nutrition

knowledge, preferences, food purchase requests, and consumption. Furthermore, the FTC

found that most foods marketed to children are high in calories, sugar, salt, and fat, and are low

in other nutrients. This was especially so for ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereals marketed to

children prior to 2000.

Two national initiatives arose in the mid-2000s to address concerns with the harmful and

persuasive nature of food advertising to children and their effects on nutritional intake. The first

was the industry led Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) that began in

2006. The CFBAI was a culmination of previous attempts at self-regulation. Prior to the CFBAI

there were several actions by individual firms to self-regulate their marketing to children as

well as an industry-wide effort through the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU). In July

of 2005, a joint workshop hosted by the FTC and the Department of Health and Human Ser-

vices (DHHS) entitled Perspectives on Marketing, Self-Regulation and Childhood Obesity,

focused on how to improve the effectiveness of efforts like CARU (FTC and DHHS, 2006). The

establishment of the CFBAI in 2006 followed this workshop and was implemented by the Coun-

cil of Better Business Bureaus to encourage firms to better self-regulate their advertising to chil-

dren. Participation in the CFBAI was voluntary, and the definition of what constitutes “better”

marketing to children was initially determined by each firm and applied only to that firm's

products. By 2010, 17 companies had joined the CFBAI, representing 75% of total food and bev-

erage advertising to children (CFBAI, 2014).

The second national initiative was the InteragencyWorkingGrouponFoodMarketedto

Children, which was a government-led effort. The 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (H.R.

1105, 111th Congress 2009–2010) required the FTC, the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the United States Depart-

ment of Agriculture (USDA) to establish the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed

to Children (aka “Working Group”) (Interagency Working Group, 2011). The Working

Group was charged with establishing voluntary principles to guide how firms market food

to children, and with establishing a threshold for the nutritional quality of foods marketed

to children. The food and beverage industry lobbied against some of these thresholds and

responded with its own proposed set of uniform nutritional guidelines for all CFBAI partici-

pating firms to adhere to by the end of 2013 (referred to as “Uniform CFBAI”)

(CFBAI, 2011,CFBAI,2014,CFBAI,2021).

Food companies and quick-serve restaurants that voluntarily participated agreed to limit

their “child-directed advertising”to foods that meet meaningful uniform nutrition criteria, or to

not engage in such advertising. For measured media, such as TV, which dominates kids' media

use, child-directed advertising generally meant ads on programs where children under age

12 constitute at least 35% of the expected audience (“audience threshold”) (CFBAI, 2014). In its

infancy, CFBAI required participants to make “better-for-you”pledges that set company-

specific nutrient standards. After December 31, 2013, foods advertised to children by CFBAI

participants were required to meet the uniform standards described above (CFBAI, 2014). For

RTE breakfast cereal products, which are the focus of this study, these criteria for a one-ounce

(28.35 g) serving of RTE cereal are: 110 calories, 10 g sugar, 168.24 mg sodium, 1.69 g, and 0 g

saturated/trans-fat.

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