Today Crikey kicks off a special investigation into how fast food marketers use sport and sporting stars to sell their wares. And we start with the Big Daddy of them all, McDonald’s, which launched a huge TV campaign with Shane Warne this summer.
For more stories and profiles, visit the Just Chew It landing page. Profiled brands include KFC, Milo, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
Last month a survey of 12,000 Australian secondary school children revealed that one in four Aussie kids is overweight or obese, with numbers more than doubling over the last 25 years. According to Professor Ian Olver of the Cancer Council Australia, we are now facing a “chronic disease time bomb”, which could see today’s teenagers dying younger than their parents.
The same survey showed more than half these 12,000 children had tried a food or drink because they had seen it advertised, while roughly a fifth had bought a food or drink because it was endorsed by a sports star or celebrity.
And we’re talking about junk food here, because that’s where the biggest food companies like McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Nestle and Yum Brands spend their massive advertising budgets.
Another recent survey showed parents are just as easily persuaded by ads and celebrity endorsements, being twice as likely to buy junk (and think it healthy) if a sports star — like Shane Warne or Tim Cahill — is smiling out from the packet or the TV screen.
Yet more and more sports and stars are taking money to promote unhealthy food. Crikey’s investigation has shown that just about every junk food brand in Australia now uses sporting celebrities and sport to sell its wares. And just about every sport is taking millions of dollars to promote foods that many athletes would never touch.
Last February, the US food giant Mars agreed to pay $1 million a year to the Carlton Football Club to get its logo on Carlton’s jerseys. The deal was advertised with pictures of the team holding up Mars bars, something they would surely not normally eat.
Over in Western Australia, the burger chain Hungry Jacks is also now paying $1 million a year to get its name on West Coast Eagles shirts. The deal gives it prominent signage at the ground, which is beamed to TV audiences across Australia.
And as we all know, Shane Warne has recently struck it rich — as the new face of the huge McDonald’s marketing campaign that was all over Nine’s summer of cricket. Not only did Warnie feature on TV ads and the Macca’s homepage (he still does), he also popped up on the sightscreen behind the batsman throughout the Test and one-day series. And thousands of Aussie kids watch cricket on TV.
Even more worrying — in view of the latest childhood obesity figures — is that fast food companies like McDonald’s deliberately target children. McDonald’s sponsors Little Athletics in every state for kids as young as four and ran a Cricket Legends competition this summer aimed at boys as young as six, with a Warne coaching clinic as the prize. It also brands a Football4Schools soccer program and has 32,000 kids in Victorian basketball competitions and another 40,000 learning to swim in McDonald’s swim schools. It’s everywhere.
In 2009, McDonald’s signed a three-year deal with Collingwood and launched a series of junior football programs and events, including the “McDonald’s Mighty Footy Trip” and “McDonald’s Mighty Footy Nights”. According to the gush from Maccas and the Pies, the partnership — which Crikey understands is worth around $250,000 a year — is “dedicated to promoting healthy, active lifestyle choices to children”.
But Maccas is notorious: for giving away toys with its Happy Meals — it is now one of America’s biggest toy distributors — and for targeting kids with characters like Ronald McDonald. A 2007 US report cited research that more than half of Australian 9-10 year-olds believe Ronald knows what’s best for them to eat. More recently, McDonald’s bagged a hat trick in the Parents Jury 2009 Fame & Shame Awards for its underhand marketing to children.
“Give me the child to the age of seven and I’ll show you the man,” says the old Jesuit adage, and McDonald’s has clearly taken it to heart.
So too has rugby league boss David Gallop, who told The Sydney Morning Herald last week: ”We have got to be turning 7-year-olds on about rugby league, either as players or … fans for life.”
Coca-Cola clearly shares Gallop’s vision of grabbing them young. Despite a policy of not marketing to children, it sponsors the NRL’s U-13 Coca Cola Challenge Cup and the ARL’s U-13 Powerade Cup up north. It also brands the U-10 Powerade Cup for soccer in North Queensland, and targets pre-teens in its Kirks Lemonade TV ads, which show boys of 10 and 11 playing backyard cricket.
Gatorade, Milo, Uncle Toby’s and Cottee’s are other famous brands that are spending big to get their brands into kids sports like cricket, soccer, rugby league, AFL, basketball, swimming and athletics. Only tennis (which used to run McDonald’s-branded junior programs) and netball (which used to be sponsored by Gatorade) now remain on the sidelines.
“Commercial involvement is so important to the survival of sport in this modern day that we understand that sports are left with little option but to be associated with junk food brands,” says Netball Australia’s chief commercial officer Marne Flechner. “We don’t have a policy against the sponsorship of junk or fast food … though we are conscious of our messages to underage netballers.
“[But] we’re in a fortunate position … the only food company with a commercial interest in underage netball is pasta company San Remo… We’re delighted to have San Remo on board because we feel their brand values of healthy eating and family married nicely with junior netball.”
Sure, these brands all defend themselves with the disclaimer that their foods and drinks should be part of a balanced diet and an active, healthy lifestyle. But what the ads are saying is “buy me” and what the sports and celebrity endorsement is saying is “it’s OK”.
UPDATE 5.35pm:
A spokesperson for Coca Cola told Crikey:
Regarding our marketing to children policy, it is a policy that has been in place for a long time. On a regular basis we run training for our staff to ensure they understand the policy and checks to ensure compliance. The POWERADE Cup for under 10’s for example is a program that was picked up in one of our checks two years ago and subsequently the program was stopped. The web page you saw is out of date and we have contacted them to have the page updated. Regarding the Coca-Cola under 13 NRL Challenge Cup this is for 12 and 13-year-olds and therefore meets our policy. The young people in the Kirks ad are 12 years or over (as per our policy) when they were filmed for this ad. We checked this with the agency that hired them on our behalf.
Click on the images below for the first in a series of Brand and Sport profiles. Feel the synergy:
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*Tomorrow: the experts say it’s not OK. This stuff is making us fat.
36 thoughts on “Just Chew It: how sport is super-sizing our kids”
GlenTurner1
March 7, 2011 at 4:34 pmRachel Croome writes: There’s another two letter word that parents can use. “No.”
So I should tell my child “no, you can’t do Little Athletics because the shirt has a McDonalds logo?” And that’s what wrong with kids sports being sponsored by fast food companies. Even if we want to teach our kids to eat right, there they are, contradicting us, during an activity we want to encourage.
Netball’s not that pure either. My daughter’s club in SA was handing out vouchers to the Kids Fattening Centre during the annual presentation afternoon. The proudest moment of her sporting life, sponsored by a fast food company. How sad.
Margo
March 7, 2011 at 6:14 pmWhen my sons played junior soccer a few years ago, the ‘Person of the Match’ award was courtesy of McDonalds — a meal at Maccas. That, plus the number of parents smoking along the sidelines, presented something less than healthy lifestyle messages, but I guess they learned that life is full of inconsistencies.
Probably the only thing that Tony Abbott has ever been right about is his claim that there are ‘always foods’ and ‘sometimes foods’, and a big part of the problem is that what used to be the latter are now the former. Clearly makes sense to stop the promotion of this kind of stuff (on tv, in supermarkets, and everywhere) and for the health sector (together with parents, medicos, child welfare advocates, etc., etc.,) to generally lobby much for forcefully for the sorts of regulatory approaches that are employed to address other public health issues.
AR
March 7, 2011 at 8:34 pmAnne put it simply. In one sentence.
MLF
March 7, 2011 at 9:55 pmYeah, and I’d wager that Anne is in the upper middle, or higher, income bracket to boot. I’d be interested to see the numbers of obesity distribution vs income distribution.
‘Evil corporate marketing’ works – thats why they do it. To use sports people to promote unhealthy food choices is even worse than the heart foundation giving its tick to high-sugar content cereals on the basis that they are low in fat.
Sports people – go and make your sponsorship buck, you deserve it. But take some responsibility about what you are endorsing to children.
brewesan
March 7, 2011 at 10:43 pmThe implication that ‘sports stars wouldn’t eat the rubbish they promote’ is bunkum. I had a friend who was an elite tri-athlete, and he found Coca-Cola and a Mars bar to be the most efficient source of a glucose energy burst.
Weight gain is simply a case of energy-in exceeding energy-out. It’s easier for the moral police to pin the blame on the energy-in cause of obesity rather than the energy-out cause.
But it’s not this simple, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with fast food, confectionery or other treats.
In fact, studies have shown that when people indulge in such treats, they compensate by eating less on other occasions during that same day, thereby maintaining a healthy weight.
MLF
March 8, 2011 at 12:51 amHmmm, curious about the obesity statistics then.
Yes, damn those moral crusader who want role models to act responsibly. Damn them who wont just let people kill themselves slowly on their own time. Damn them all.
Cigarette anyone?
Juffy
March 8, 2011 at 2:01 amBrewesan – “he found Coca-Cola and a Mars bar to be the most efficient source of a glucose energy burst.”
Dead on. I went for a 20k run this morning, and what did I take in my pocket? Two Mars bars. Colour me a bad person.
There’s nowhere near enough nuance in this debate, as with most public debates these days. If your kids are belting around an oval for an hour, a choccy bar isn’t going to hurt them one bit. If you’re putting a bowl of chips beside them as they’re glued to the PS3 it’s a different story.
drmick
March 8, 2011 at 9:32 amJust tell me who is going to provide financial support for parents who have children who want to be actively involved in sport?
I have two sons. They played rugby league from the age of five up until the age of 22years.
They had mates in their peer group whose parents were unable to be at the training sessions or the game.
They were also the parents who were too busy to help with fund raising to keep the club going, that was keeping their kids off the street, teaching them about being part of a team and helping to form the Australian of the future.
Win lose or draw we would pull into a Maccas on the way home after the game.
Thanks to the Luddites and human trash that floats to the top of the bowl where we live, the Maccas is 32 kilometres down the hill from where the team is located.
After two seasons of dropping in, the ownwer of franchise sat next to me and asked if she could help our team and sponsor the club.
I had personally sought sponsorship for the club from every business, tourist rip off owner, slow food dump and multi national in our town, and only the town butcher and two tradies were interested in helping.
This, is in a town with double digit unemployment, government sponsored undesirables relocation and a Centrelink that ranks in the top five in the state for the location of benefits recipients.
When the “anti” crowd can give me a compelling argument against them, and can tell me where I can get the sponsorship we need, and when they can provide a McDonald house alternative, then I will listen, then I will give them some credibility.
Obesity is a two way street. If you cant provide your kid with a decent diet don’t blame someone else.
If you cant educate your child as to what is good and what is bad, wake up, it is not some one else’s fault.
If you are an “Anti” professional, go away some where and die. You are the type who wants to preserve sporting fields and leash free areas to keep the kids away from them so you have some where to take your dog to defecate. You complain about children making a noise like “laughter” and “cheering” while they are participating in and supporting sport. Surely with your head that far up your fundamental orifice, there is not that much you can hear; or is it the thought of someone having a good time?
Maybe it is the same with funding for sport. Very little fact and lots of unchallenged fact- free rhetoric.
Most city dwellers don’t care about anyone else but themselves. In regional and country towns, the only funding available for sports is from Maccas, the local pub and maybe the local butcher.
( Isn’t it ironic that it would be the anti alcohol, anti meat and anti maccas mob that would complain; especially in a democracy, where they are in the minority). funny that.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally don’t eat their stuff and some of their coffee is good; but without their sponsorship there is no club, there is no sport and there is boredom. Fact.
Now give me both a compelling argument and an alternate source of funding, and I will bet every country born sports person from Steve Mortimer all the way through to today’s netball, swimming, field athlete and league, rugby union and soccer player will tell you that they would not be where they are today without that big M helping them get there at some stage of their career.
The “Anti” mob will always be anti and good lick to them. They can get stuffed from my perspective.
MLF
March 8, 2011 at 10:11 amIf you can’t see the difference between McDonalds sponsoring your son’s football league (i.e. kids, get out there and play football) and McDonalds using Shane Warne to promote the brand (i.e. kids, eat McDonalds and you too can be a philandering, gobby, world-famous cricketer), then you don’t understand what advertising is or how it works. Which is EXACTLY what they are counting on.
Corporate giants get plenty of payback through their community work. They do not need to be using sports people to promote unhealthy food choices. Ask yourself why they are doing it? Why are they using Shane Warne to promote burgers? Ah, yes, you see now – to sell more burgers!!!!
Equally – sports people should be promoting healthy food choices. They did not get to be where they are without good guidance and good nutrition. By telling kids that eating junk is ok – and make no mistake, this is exactly what they are telling them – it steals from those children the opportunities they themselves had. It is quite apparent that ethics flies out the window where money is concerned. Don’t get them any more credit than they deserve.
Its really not rocket science.
brewesan
March 8, 2011 at 10:16 amDRMICK, you have me LOL. Agreed, and well put!