Inventory of marketing techniques used in child-appealing food and beverage research: a rapid review

Abstract

Objectives: Restrictions on child-appealing food and beverage marketing have been prioritized globally. However, the concept of “child-appealing marketing” has not been consistently defined, leading to variability in policies and research. The objective of this review was therefore to generate an inventory of the marketing techniques that have been used in research to identify child-appealing marketing.

Methods: Based on WHO guidelines, this review identified primary research that analyzed child-appealing marketing techniques, using the OVID Medline database and hand searches in Google Scholar and PubMed. All marketing techniques were extracted, counted, and synthesized into an inventory, organized thematically and by popularity.

Results: From 133 publications, 1421 marketing techniques were extracted (mean 10.7/publication; range: 1–66). The final inventory included 117 techniques; the “use of characters, children, and actors” was the most popular theme.

Conclusions: The inventory and categorization generated by this research can be used for informing future research and for alerting policy-makers globally to the breadth of child-appealing food and beverage marketing techniques, helping move toward a consistent and comprehensive definition of child-appealing marketing in regulations aimed at restricting this type of marketing.