SLJ Talks to Researcher Donna Matheson about the Importance of Marketing to Kids

Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal,08/21/2007

It's well known that by age two, kids can recognize brand names, packaging, and logos. How much value they attach to that recognition was brought home by a recent study in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Stanford University School of Medicine researchers asked 63 Head Start children, ages three to five, which tasted better: McDonald's food in original wrappers or in unmarked wrappers? Across all food categories, 60 percent of the kids chose McDonald's wrappers, while 22 percent chose plain wrappers, and 18 percent said the food tasted the same.

SLJ spoke with Stanford senior research scientist Donna Matheson, a nutritionist and an author of the study, about the implications for marketing to the very young.

Was there anything surprising about your results?

The extent to which they preferred McDonald's was a little surprising, especially given that we didn't use wrappers depicting Ronald McDonald and the movies and toys. We just used plain wrapping with an “M” on it and cups with an “M” on it, with McDonald's [yellow arches] logo. And the results were with kids so young. By three to five years old, they definitely have the idea that an “M” on a package makes the food better.

Which individual foods attracted the highest preference numbers for the McDonald's wrapper?

French fries were up there. With hamburgers, there wasn't a difference. With chicken nuggets, French fries, and milk or apple juice, there was a difference. With carrots, there was a difference but not as strong as the other three foods.

Were you surprised that even carrots had a branded association?

I was the nutritionist on the study, and the carrots were my idea. Yeah, it was alarming. I think it also gave us the idea that maybe marketing can be used to sell healthy foods. But what we tend to always use it for is to sell unhealthy foods. If we just used it in a way that was better for kids' health, we'd be making a change in their preferences and possibly what they'd eat.

What about the obesity connection?

Kids are getting bigger and bigger, so we're really interested in finding what sort of things are contributing to that. One thing that does come up is the amount of marketing of unhealthy foods to kids and whether they're consuming these foods in excess, and whether or not we could curb their consumption by not marketing so heavily to them.

McDonald's likes to point to the healthy food choices on its menu. Do they come too late for these kids?

That is a great first step. But it's not the only step. You have to remember they are children and they're put in an environment where there's something very tempting for them. They can't cognitively think through those decisions; they can't think in the future. They're in the moment, and they're there because they want something that looks very exciting to them.

You used Head Start kids. Would the results have been different had you gone to upscale preschools?

I actually think the results would have been very, very similar. Obesity tends to be a bigger problem in lower-income populations; unhealthy food consumption tends to be a bigger problem in lower-income populations. So, for those two reasons, it's a much more challenging group to work with. My two children were pilot-tested—and they'd never seen McDonald's to my knowledge—and they went for McDonald's.

What is the message here for educators and parents?

For educators, it's “be careful what advertising you put in your classroom.” If I could say anything, I would say, “Keep advertising out of schools.”

Post a comment   Return to article   View other article discussions

Post a comment   Return to article   View other article discussions