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”
drsmithy
March 9, 2011 at 12:43 pmBoth chimpanzees and gorillas are omnivores. Indeed, chimpanzees form packs and hunt animals (including other primates) for their meat.
It sounds like you’ve been reading too much PETA propaganda.
drmick
March 9, 2011 at 2:17 pmMLF
I don’t aim my principles or beliefs or experience at anyone in particular.
I certainly don’t try and force them down any ones throats and I don’t take offence easily.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
You raise your children the way you want to. That was, and is, my point. There are a lot of other things that happen in my world that I do not like and I share your concerns about our future generations.My whole working and social life has been about caring for others.I don’t think my point regarding role models was understood.
My point, and I make it again, is that by empowering an individual that you would not have in your house, let alone in the same room with your children, as a role model, then the bad guys have already won. You must be their role model.
Just the same as you guide your children towards making positive life decisions, ultimately, you cannot force them not to join the Army or to become politicians or lawyers.
My personal dislikes include individuals who don’t immunise their children and endanger whole populations by reintroducing diseases that had been eradicated. People who choose not to breast feed, (I empathise with those that cant), and then are amazed at the proliferation of allergies in kids and the emergence of breast cancer. I feel for those who study a subject but don’t have the skill to draw an educated result from the ethical sum.
Like everywhere in life, there a people who will do anything for money.
(God only knows that I work for money, and not very much for the work we do just quietly). Apart from being the oldest profession, prostitution has a new face, and it is the very people you are talking about.
They have decided on a price. Their morals, ethics, and perhaps parental guidance, has not been effective enough to stop them from making a poor decision.
If you want to change things, you have to start small and start at home.
Flower
March 9, 2011 at 5:11 pmDr Smithy – I referred to gorillas as one of the strongest beasts on the planet that do not eat meat. Gorillas are herbivores that eat fruits, leaves, and shoots. Further, they are also classified as folivores. Much like other animals that feed on plants and shoots, they sometimes ingest small insects as well if that is what you mean by meat.
And gorillas also eat ants and termites much in the same way as chimpanzees. Mountain gorillas feed predominantly on herbs, stems and roots. Gorillas have been known to scavenge the bones of dead monkeys and mammals. So what?
Furthermore, chimpanzees that were observed by anthropologist, Jane Goodall, eat an amount of meat the size of a pea per day on average – which would hardly contribute to the chimps’ nutritional needs so enough of the hyperbole thanks.
And I read in today’s paper of a Tasmanian farmer who was charged a bit of petty cash – a piddling $2,500 for using an angle grinder and knife to hack off the tails of a dairy herd. And no he wasn’t locked up for this criminal activity. Perhaps we could catch up with him and use an angle grinder to hack off his genitals? An eye for an eye?
Does it cost much to be a paid up member of the meat and livestock industry which elevates you above human morality?
drsmithy
March 10, 2011 at 5:53 pmSo that means they eat other animal products (more accurately, it’s not a vegan diet, which is what you are implicitly arguing).
I’m at a loss as to how or why “strong” comes into the discussion at all.
What you are doing is called lying with statistics. Chimps hunt and kill animals (including other chimps) for their meat. It is observed and documented behaviour.
Humans are omnivores. It is an inescapable fact of biology, and it is highly likely we have consumption of meat (particularly cooked meat) to thank for our evolutionary advancement beyond other primates.
Further, without the support of modern society (because of artificial nutrient supplements, processed/refined foods, and food distribution networks), it would be practically impossible for most humans to live on a vegan diet.
Flower
March 11, 2011 at 3:23 pmDrSmithy – The father of anthropology and palaeontology Richard Leadey advises that gorillas are herbivores as do reputable primatologists so that is good enough for me.
Further, Goodall found that 1.4% of a chimps time is consumed from eating meat. Conklin estimated 4% and Craig Stanford estimated 3%. Among the mix are biologists, medical anthropologists and primatologists.
I have a bedraggled stray cat in the neighbourhood who is eating the fruit from my strawberry plants. I guess then you would insist that the cat is an omnivore?
Humans occasionally eat humans so I guess we should rank ourselves as cannibals? Oh the hilarity of it – the world according to the MLA – diseased flesh, industrial chemicals, spin and the killing fields – err….best to include the “feedlots” too.
“Humans are omnivores. It is an inescapable fact of biology” (cringe). Well no, Dr Smithy – it is not.
Omnivore: Length of intestines – 4.6 times body length. Humans 10-11 times. Omnivore: Colon – simple, short and smooth. Humans – long, sacculated – may ferment. Omnivore: Liver can detoxify Vitamin A – humans cannot. Etc etc. which says little for your “evolution.”
http://www.tierversuchsgegner.org/wiki/index.php?title=Taxonomy
“It is highly likely we have consumption of meat (particularly cooked meat) to thank for our evolutionary advancement beyond other primates.”
Advancement? Ideally, meat should be eaten raw. You know the cup of blood and the occasional road kill? Raw prevents the formation of PAHs which are carcinogens. On reflection, perhaps one should cook meat to prevent becoming contaminated with worms, salmonella and a myriad of other zoonotic pathogens now afflicting humans though nothing destroys the load of dioxins. And five million Australians now suffer food poisoning every year. Yeah – right – that’s “evolution.”
There is no consensus among anthropologists about the consumption of meat among early hominids. There is little evidence of regular culling of large mammals at the time of homus habilis. Debate among anthropologists still surrounds the role of hunting versus opportunistic scavenging in later hominids, such as Homo erectus and the transitional forms between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Several biological anthropologists exclude hunting as a prime mover factor in human evolution. Perhaps you may explain why other species – carnivores and omnivores have not evolved through their massive consumption of meat?
The Tasmanian animal abuser mutilated the back end of 20 cows with an angle grinder and a knife. One cow equals one finger tip. Twenty cows equals 10 finger tips and 10 toes. An uncorrupted democracy would allow the culprit the right to choose – incarceration, toes and fingers or castration? Your maths, not mine.
Japan, Saudi Arabia, the US have all rejected Australia’s shipments of sheep and beef (dead and alive) because of pesticide contamination.
I guess one could therefore call humans “pestivores? ”
Hilarious. Your post is a load of old cobblers.
drsmithy
March 13, 2011 at 10:50 amYou are attempting to lie with statistics again, and not even doing a particularly good job at it.
How much time they spend eating meat is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they do eat it, deliberately and voluntarily.
Besides, 4% is supposed to be low ? That’s about an hour out of every day. I have meat in probably two out of three main meals a day, and I doubt I spend even 1% of my time actually eating it.
Assuming said cat even exists, no.
The difference here is that the cat will not seek out and eat fruit absent some abnormal influence (like, say, desparate hunger) whereas chimps (and humans) will happily and willingly seek out animal products without any abnormal factors influencing them.
Even within the bounds of recorded history, animal products have been a staple of human diets. Are you seriously going to try and argue the Babylonians were eating meat because of something like the politically powerful Goat Herders Alliance influencing society ?
You really need to keep that PETA thing from flaring up. The bile could get on someone’s clothing and ruin it.
Actually it is. Humans can – and do – derive nutritional value from meat. Several key elements of a balanced diet are difficult to find without eating meat and other animal products. It’s extremely difficult to survive on a diet bereft of animal products without very, very careful meal construction and/or artificial dietary supplements, to say nothing of the sheer volume of plant material that would need to be ingested to meet a human’s energy needs (easy today, quite difficult in the days of nomadic tribees, particularly for those who lived in more inhospitable regions).
Fundamentally, if humans weren’t omnivores, they wouldn’t willingly and specifically ingest animal products at all. Yet, they do, and in poorer societies meat is typically seen as a luxury.
Google brings up more than enough information to discredit this claptrap. Here’s a few examples:
http://veganskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/10/are-humans-omnivores.html
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-1b.shtml
http://www.paulcooijmans.com/evolution/eating_meat.html
Apparently you failed logic as well as science.