The Power of Advertising

Here’s one for all the mums and dads.... Children find food ‘six times tastier’ if its wrapped in McDonald's packaging. Its true ya know, I make much better hamburgers than Mcdonalds, but you’d never get my kid to agree to that!!

A study designed to find out once and for all the power of advertising, has revealed that boys and girls as young as three found food tastier when they thought it was made by a big brand. The kids were all aged three to five and were asked to rate five foods for tastiness. Each of the foods were presented twice, once in McDonalds packaging and once in plain wrapping. Other than the packaging, the samples were identical. The results highlight the reason I just cant seem to be able to drive by a set of those golden arches without harassment from the backseat to visit the drive-thru. Wherever the Mcdonalds wrapper was involved there could be no substitute as far as the kids in the study were concerned. And the phenomenon is NOT just restricted to fast food, the youngsters also thought that milk and carrots were tastier when they believed they had been bought at McDonald's. All of this was done at Stanford University in the US, and of course comes amid growing concern about the influence of advertising on children's health. Child obesity rates are shooting through the roof (& not just in the good old USA). Experts have warned that unless the Government acts now, an entire generation faces an old age blighted by heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases brought on by obesity, with today's children dying at a younger age than their parents. (Shame on us!). The problem is that although, junk food manufacturers have had to cut down their advertising during kids programmes on TV, they are now INCREASINGLY advertising on the internet. Just about all of the major brands now have their own websites with games and animations etc for the kids……. This research shows just how powerful (& worrying) that advertising is. Personally I think the 'Happy Meal' toy has a LOT to do with their motivation!