Many food companies such as Nestle, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, and general mills have been marketing to children through advergames (online games using products). Because kids are spending so much time online, it allows marketers to easily reach them and promote their products. In these games, players generally take the role of an animated food product and must accomplish the goal given.
Even though companies agreed to only market healthy products to children, a study has shown that 95 % of meals and 78 % of snacks advertised through games exceeded the USDA and FDA for total fat content; sugar and salt were also issues. The fact that companies continue to market their unhealthy products to kids during a time when the childhood obesity rate is increasing is a serious issue. Once children are exposed to these unhealthy food advertisements they build a brand preference and are able to persuade their parents into buying these products. Another problem is that even if these companies put a restriction on what age demographic could access the games, there really are no borders on the internet and children would still be able to access them.
Using advergames to target the children demographic is a very effective marketing strategy because it not only exposes them to the product, but engages them by forcing interaction between the user and the product. Also, children are currently very engaged in online media and games which makes it one the best mediums to effectively market products to them. Unfortunately, not all of these products are beneficial to the health of children.
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