Anheuser-Busch – Buds for Buds

Bring back Chicken Fries – Burger King

Fast food chains periodically self-items on their menu, only to bring them back later and drive consumers to their locations. Social media seems ideal for marketing these campaigns, and Burger King is indeed king when it comes to viral strategy. When “chicken fries” started getting considerable mentions on social channels in January 2015, the company reacted and made a decision to bring back the food. With the hashtag #chickenfriesareback and presence on Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it was their most social initiative so far, averaging 380 tweets a minute and getting 150,000 total mentions on social media in the first 72 hours of the campaign.

T-shirt Printing for Marketing Campaigns

Thanks to our five years of experience in the T-Shirt printing industry, we are now able to satisfy the needs of even the biggest of companies. Printsome’s services are not only perfect for a marketing campaign but also for producing uniforms and souvenirs..

From the moment you get in touch, one of our printing experts in either London or Glasgow will answer all of your questions and find efficient solutions to your needs. It is our mission to help you reach your goals.

We ship all over the UK with flexible delivery services that can adapt to most deadlines. Fast T-shirt printing has never been this easy. Need to print in bulk? We got you covered. Why worry about inventory or logistics when we can take care of that? To find out more, simply visit our website by clicking on the banner below.

Printsome is a T-shirt printing company offering from printed T-shirts in Bedford to custom jumpers in Poole, and everywhere else in the UK. For a quick quote personalised hoodies or simply a friendly chat about food, get in touch!

Experts in making T-shirt printing an awesome experience. Custom clothing solutions for businesses, merchandising and print on demand.

15 Examples of Great Digital Food Advertisements

With over 660,000 restaurants operating in the U.S. alone, digital food advertisement is an incredibly competitive market.

To stand out, you need to combine humor, design, strategy, and user engagement, all while keeping your audience hungry.

What Makes Food Advertisements Unique?

Without creative marketing campaigns, the food industry could be pretty dull. Luckily, there are so many ways to bring food to life in digital food advertisements.

What makes food advertisements unique is their ability to turn the mundane into excitement.

A simple burger on a plate can become a narrative story about your favorite sports game.

In order to create unbeatable food advertisements, you need to focus on high-quality ingredients.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating a unique food advertisement:

Great Food Advertisement Examples

Great food advertisements should make your mouth water, your belly growl, and your heart warm.

Paired with intelligent marketing strategies, these food advertisements will help you create high-converting PPC campaigns that bring your brand to the global stage.

Here are some of our top picks for digital food advertisements.

1. Jif Peanut Butter

Leveraging motion graphics in your digital food advertisement is a great way to catch the eye of your scrolling audience.

In this Jif Peanut Butter ad, a beating heart communicates the excitement and love that the world has come to feel for Jif. Branded in the signature Jif colors, it also delivers clear brand awareness and integrity. This is a big brand marketing lesson in a jar!

Whether it’s crunchy or creamy, in a pouch or a jar, one fact remains the same: Jif peanut butter is #ThatJifingGood! 🥜 Show us how you’re celebrating #NationalPeanutButterLoversDay. 💞 pic.twitter.com/4qBIxXmY9Z

2. Goldfish

Staying up to date on trends, holidays, and seasons is a great way to deliver relevant food advertisements to your audience.

Also, adjusting your PPC campaigns seasonally will help you create important audience connections and let your followers know you’re paying attention.

In this Twitter ad, @GoldfishSmiles used narrative video to tell a classic St. Patrick’s Day tale of two little fish who drank a bit too much.

This food advertisement is funny, creative, quirky, and relatable. Plus, it’s short and sweet, which makes it perfect for your Twitter feed.

3. No Frills

No Frills is a Canadian supermarket chain that has made its name in recent years with humorous social media advertising.

No Frills is most known for its meme-worthy content, taking inspiration from the internet’s latest trends and delivering them in dead-pan content across their social channels.

In this No Frills Facebook ad, No Frills takes advantage of the popular “expectation versus reality” meme while also advertising their in-house pancake batter brand.

The result? A resounding audience laugh, hundreds of likes and comments, and a food advertisement win for this growing brand.

4. Clevr

Sometimes, all you need to create a high-quality food advertisement is a bit of color and simple movement.

In this Clevr food advertisement, the brand displays its Matcha Chai Latte and Chai Super Latte drinks.

Simple design, calming music, and pastel colors give the viewer a relaxing feel that evokes tranquility and calm.

Not only is the ad visually appealing, but it also offers diverse advertising usage. Clevr could easily use this food advertisement on a number of channels, from Twitter to Instagram and more.

5. Panera Bread

This Panera Bread Facebook ad leverages the thing we love most about food advertisements: the food!

With an immediate appeal to our most natural human emotion (hunger), this food advertisement sets the stage for our cravings. From there, high-quality, macaroni-and-cheese imagery delights the senses.

It’s so delectable, you can almost taste it.

Another great thing about this food advertisement is that it uses a call-to-action at the end of the ad. In this way, Panera guides its audience directly to its desired end goal of purchasing some of their delicious macaroni.

6. Five Guys

Five Guys is one of those brands that always keeps it real. They do a few things really well, namely burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

With this kind of established brand identity, Five Guys can lean on the quality of their products more often.

In this ad, they are showcasing one of their best-loved products: the burger bun. The ad shows an image of the bun warming up, just waiting to be ordered.

They also use a creative call-to-action at the bottom, urging viewers to find their nearest Five Guys shop. This is a great tactic for brands who have a widespread presence and are looking to make sales in multiple locations.

Using a bit of humor, an appeal to emotion, and a simple yet effective image, this Instagram ad reminds customers that Five Guys knows what they’re good at, and they deliver it every time.

7. Burger King

Legacy fast-food chains have had to get creative in recent years in order to capture the hearts of millennial viewers.

Burger King knows millennials love nostalgia, and what better way to appeal to that emotion than by bringing back their legendary chicken fries.

In this Burger King Twitter ad, the brand relates its chicken fries to some of the most essential human traits. This appeal, although absurd, delivers the right dose of comedy to the ad.

In addition, the use of a custom graphic design is eye-catching and fun. The design ensures that any millennial scrolling down will stop and stare, remembering chicken fries from days past.

This campaign garnered features in HuffPost and Time magazine, alongside bringing 380 tweets per minute into the Burger King ecosystem. This is millennial marketing done right.

8. IHOP

There’s no doubt about it, IHOP is an American classic. When it was time for the brand to celebrate 60 years of successful business, they wanted to do it in style.

This IHOP Twitter ad uses music, design, and graphics to thank their loyal customers for 60 years of continued service.

The creative copy of the post offers comedic relief, stating that the brand has been operating “for 60 pancakin’ years.”

Also, they further entice viewers by hinting at a surprise announcement only available on a certain date. This use of a deadline to encourage conversions is a great way to maintain audience engagement over time.

For 60 pancakin’ years, we’ve been IHOP. Now, we’re flippin’ our name to IHOb. Find out what it could b on 6.11.18. #IHOb pic.twitter.com/evSxKV3QmT

This food advertisement immediately piqued the attention of IHOP’s viewers, bringing in more than 43,000 retweets.

What was the big reveal? We’ll let you visit the IHOP Twitter page to find out.

9. Taco Bell

Emojis are part of the modern lexicon. Every day, the online world is full of these fun, little pictures that help us communicate over text.

Although emoji are always evolving, users often complain their favorite images aren’t available in emoji.

Taco Bell decided to flip this idea on its head and in 2015, they began petitioning for a taco emoji to be included in the emoji dictionary.

Not only did Taco Bell create a legendary advertising campaign, but they started a petition to lobby emoji creators, Unicode Consortium, for their cause.

The result? We now have a taco emoji.

This food advertisement campaign was one part passion and two parts humor, resulting in one of the most memorable creative marketing campaigns of the decade.

10. HelloFresh

User-generated content is a great asset to your marketing strategy.

In this HelloFresh story ad, a human voice is heard listing off the benefits of the meal-delivery service in an honest and human way.

The quality of the video is less than what we would expect from a well-known company like HelloFresh, but it adds to the honest nature of the post.

By using social proof, HelloFresh manages to show its audience that its product is legitimate and trustworthy.

11. Publix

One of the easiest ways to appeal to audience emotion is to connect your product to a well-loved pastime.

Publix knows America loves football. They also know no football game is complete without friends, drinks, and food.

This Publix Facebook Ad ran in the Southern U.S. during football season. It targeted southern users who were known to enjoy football and were ages 21+.

If you were planning your weekend with a tailgate party and you saw this ad, it would immediately remind you to stock up on your favorite beer and snacks at your local Publix. This is emotional targeting at its finest.

12. Wendy’s

Another great paid advertising tactic is to offer a deal or use a coupon strategy.

This ad is effective because it creates a story for the viewer. Once you see this image, you can immediately picture yourself sitting poolside with a cheap meal, enjoying your best summertime life.

Wendy’s manages to promote their sale, appeal to emotion, and create a narrative, all with a few pieces of cardstock paper and a chicken burger. That’s impressive!

13. Dunkin’

When creating digital food advertisements, it’s important to leverage every tool available to you.

When you advertise using paid social, there are so many ways to get creative, encourage audience interaction, and show off your products at the same time.

Take this Dunkin’ food advertisement as an example. Dunkin’ is promoting their iconic donut fries.

To build hype around the release, they created an interactive Instagram story using the poll feature. This allowed their audience to vote on what they liked better: donuts or fries.

(Spoiler, the correct answer is donut fries).

While A/B testing these ads, Dunkin Donuts found that stories with a poll had a 20% lower cost per view than those without.

Not only was this a creative way to boost user engagement, but the brand gathered important data to inform their future campaigns.

14. Dr. Pepper

Beverages and food go hand in hand. There’s nothing like a cold Dr. Pepper alongside your favorite meal.

Dr. Pepper wanted to capitalize on the way their customers pair their drinks with other foods.

In this Diet Dr. Pepper advertisement, the brand uses fun motion graphics and design to show all of the different snack foods and meals that go well with the popular drink.

The use of music in the ad also adds a fun, youthful element to the viewing experience.

The end result? Viewers are both thirsty, hungry, and looking forward to cracking open their next Dr. Pepper.

15. Mochi Foods

Mochi Foods is a gluten-free, Hawaiian food maker that creates pancake mixes, breads, waffles, and more which use rice flour instead of wheat.

In this fun Mochi Foods social media ad, they show viewers what they can create with one pack of Mochi Food mix.

This ad is a great example of showcasing a product in action. Although a bag of Mochi Food mix might seem a bit boring, the product takes on new life once we see how it can be transformed into a delicious stack of fresh pancakes.

This ad can be used on a variety of platforms, which makes it diverse and multifaceted.

After watching it, you’re immediately hungry, which is the sign of an effective food advertisement.

Food Advertisements: Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a good food advertisment?

Stunning images are crucial to good food advertisements. Then, focus on what your consumers care about — are they health-conscious, worried about the environment, or do they prefer organic? Focus on what matters most to them.

What strategies should I use in food advertising?

Visual content is key in food advertising. Images of delicious food is the best way to sell food.

What platform should I use in food advertising?

Social media and video are both idea platforms. Research where your audience spends time online and then focus on those platforms.

Should I use paid ads for food advertising?

Paid ads on social media or Google Ads are a great way to broaden your reach and build brand awareness.

Food Advertisments Conclusion

To create successful digital food advertisements you need to come up with unique campaign ideas and maintain a cohesive brand image.

It’s also important to harness your social media marketing tactics across all channels, appeal to your audience’s emotions, leverage storytelling, and showcase your products in action are great ways to create food advertisements that stand out.

Because the food advertising marketing is so saturated, it may be hard to develop a paid ad strategy that actually gets you noticed. If you’re struggling to create or find success with your paid ads, our agency is here to help!

What tactics do you use when creating great food advertisements?

See How My Agency Can Drive Massive Amounts of Traffic to Your Website

Share

Hey, I’m Neil Patel. I’m determined to make a business grow. My only question is, will it be yours?

About Neil Patel

He is the co-founder of NP Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Hey, I’m Neil Patel. I’m determined to make a business grow. My only question is, will it be yours?

Advertising of Food

ADVERTISING OF FOOD. The word «advertising» is derived from the French avertissement, a giving notice or announcement. An advertisement is information that is publicly communicated through mass communication. The business of advertising is an aspect of commerce that is an integrated part of industrialized and affluent societies that can afford to purchase goods. Advertising brings notice to a wide range of consumer products, including food, a major consumer of advertising. In the United States in the 1990s, food and beverages together formed the most heavily advertised type of product: approximately 40 to 50 percent of television commercials are for food products, amounting to between ten and fifteen commercials every hour. Advertising takes place at a number of levels in the food marketing chain. Advertisements — ads in the United States and adverts in Britain — may be issued by manufacturers individually or as a group, by a marketing board representing a generic product, and by wholesalers, retailers, and distributors.

Although advertising has a long history, modern advertising began with the invention of printing in the sixteenth century. Early advertisements for foods, which were presented alongside those for books, medicines, cures, and remedies, tended to be for foods and drinks that were at first consumed by the upper classes. English weeklies first reported coffee in 1652, chocolate in 1657, and tea in 1658. The widespread expansion of print advertising did not take place until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its spread was stimulated and encouraged by changing and developing trade patterns, especially the rail network and the improvement of roads. Improved means of transportation allowed for the expansion of extended regional and national trade networks. As the production of goods increased, they had to be more efficiently and effectively distributed and marketed. As much of the early advertising was contained in print media, the spread of literacy, together with the steep rise in the development of newspapers and magazines, especially after 1850, stimulated its development. It is in the last hundred years that advertising has developed into a major industry. So important has it become that it is central to the production of general communications and provides the economic basis that enables them to exist. It is also central to the development and existence of many products.

Functions of Advertising

Advertising has a number of functions. It is used to launch new food products. The advertising campaign for Nescaf é instant coffee granules in the 1950s allowed it to gain a foothold in a market that had strong competition from other brands such as Maxwell House, «America’s favorite coffee.» It is used to extend the sale of products that are already established in the marketplace. In 1956 the advertising campaign for the biscuit Snack, manufactured by Cadbury, caused an immediate increase in sales. Although its initial impact was not maintained, sales remained higher than the earlier unadvertised level for a year or so, even when there was almost no advertising support given to it. Advertising is used to promote the growth of a product. A marketing campaign for Callard & Bowser Butterscotch in 1959 and 1960 caused its consumption to expand by around 20 percent. Advertising also created a continued demand for a product when the original need to consume it had become redundant due to changing social and economic conditions. Bovril, fluid beef, was developed in the 1870s as a convalescence food and was later used as an energy food on expeditions and during sporting events. With higher incomes, better eating, changing drinking habits (for example, the increased consumption of coffee over tea, and the popularity of carbonated, or «fizzy,» drinks), and the availability of new drinks, the original rationale for the consumption of Bovril had declined by the post – World War II years. An advertising campaign was introduced to remove the idea that it was an old-fashioned drink and to suggest that it was a «contemporary» one. Advertising has been used to slow down the decline in the consumption of a product. When milk consumption was falling in the postwar period in Britain, especially in the mid-1950s, the National Milk Publicity Campaign succeeded in slowing down the rate of decline and in introducing new outlets that served to stimulate consumption.

Costs of Advertising

As these figures suggest, not all foodstuffs are advertised to the same extent. In Britain in 1999, highly advertised foods include cereal products, confectionery, ice cream, potato crisps, snacks and nuts, margarine, lowfat spreads, and cheese. By comparison, small sums are spent on herbs and spices, excluding pepper and curry. Advertising-to-sales ratios vary greatly between products. For herbs and spices and fresh vegetables the figure may be as low as 0.06 percent and 0.07 percent respectively. Many foods had less than a 1 percent ratio. Intensive advertising at 11.31 percent was noted for cereals. Generally, advertising of food products shows a lower percentage of expenditure than that of other products, including alcoholic drinks and tobacco.

Advertising Media

Food is advertised through a number of channels. As new technologies have become available, the opportunities for advertising have broadened. A number of these are especially important. Newspapers and magazines have long been a significant vehicle for advertising. Newspapers in Britain published advertisements in the seventeenth century, and, as the provincial press expanded, greater opportunities became available for food advertising. In the later nineteenth century, magazines increasingly started to carry advertisements: In the United States in the 1930s, some 20 percent of products advertised in the major print advertising media of women’s and domestic magazines were for food and drink products. When radio networks were established (in 1926 and 1927 in the United States), they used advertising to bring in revenue. Food and drink manufacturers sponsored programs and also advertised their products in short «commercial breaks.» In the 1950s television introduced a further medium that owes its effectiveness to the wide range of means that can be used to promote a product: moving pictures, sound (voice and music), and the written word. In the late twentieth century the introduction and extended use of the World Wide Web and e-commerce had an enormous initial growth. In the United Kingdom, growth rates for online marketing since the mid-1990s have been consistently well in excess of 100 percent, year after year. Internet advertising is undertaken through a number of means. In the year 2000, the majority (81 percent) of advertising took place through banners, and small numbers through sponsorship (9 percent), classified advertisements (7 percent), and other means (3 percent). Internet advertising includes sites from manufacturers, product manufacturing boards, supermarkets (which allow for online shopping and home delivery), and food enthusiast sites (for example, for British products in the United States).

Other media have provided further means of advertising food. Billboards and hoardings were first used for this purpose in Britain in the 1890s and are found over a wide geographical area. Light displays in cities, such as those for the carbonated drink Irn-Bru in Glasgow and Coca-Cola in London, have presented advertisements as visual images within central cityscapes. Buses and electric cars (especially since the 1890s in the United States) have carried advertising, usually on their sides or rear. Manufacturers advertise their products on their distribution vans; some also have special promotional vehicles that they use in campaigns where they take their product to public places or special shows to advertise it. Sponsorship of major public popular and sporting events is undertaken by a number of manufacturers. Flora margarine, made from sunflower oil, which is high in essential polyunsaturates, has been the sponsor of the London marathon in the late 1990s; the Bell’s open golf championship is sponsored by Bell’s, the whiskey manufacturer.

Advertising and promotion of foods is undertaken within the retail industry. Fancy displays draw attention to one or a range of products. In Britain, displays from the 1860s included decorative tins with hinged lids developed by the biscuit manufacturer Huntley and Palmers of Reading. As self-service supermarkets developed, largely after World War II, products could be displayed to draw special attention to them. Three-dimensional displays promoted a single product or a range, and tended to be developed by manufacturers. Supermarkets sometimes hold special testing events where customers can sample a product, thereby encouraging them to buy it. Food is also sold in special promotional packets, sometimes at a «special introductory price» or a «special promotional price.» These may hold a sample of the product that can be packaged in a way that reflects the packaging on the regular-sized product.

A range of ephemeral material is distributed to food wholesalers and retailers by manufacturers and others involved in processing and distribution. Some of this, including calendars, pens, and pads of headed note paper, is intended to remind the consumer of the product on a daily basis.

Coupons, which allow the consumer to receive a discount on the product when they present one to a retailer, are found in a range of print media, especially newspapers and magazines.

The medium that is used to advertise a product is selected for its appropriateness to that product, the nature and scope of the advertising campaign, and its desired target audience. Each medium has its own values and qualities. When television started to become widely adopted in Britain in the mid-1950s, Bird’s Eye decided to use this new medium to advertise its frozen food products. The company was aware that families with televisions were more likely to be interested in new ideas such as Bird’s Eye’s products. At that time it was recognized that there was a potentially large market for frozen food, which was a relatively new phenomenon. In the 1920s daily newspapers were best suited to advertise foods and other products that were bought on a regular basis. Magazines that were to be read by a particular social class or group carried advertisements for foods and other products that would likely be consumed by them.

Advertising Targets

Much food advertising is targeted at women, the main buyers of food in the household. As children are recognized as important persuaders in that process and as they may accompany their mothers to buy the family food, advertising is also targeted at them. Recent studies of food advertising in South Africa show the need of advertisers to monitor social changes because food advertising, like advertising in general, reflects social and cultural trends, values, and attitudes. Cultural differences are also reflected in advertising. Chinese television advertisements tend to signify family values, tradition, and technology, whereas themes in American advertisements tend to symbolize the importance of enjoyment, cost savings, and individualism. With the emergence of global culture, specific values such as global cosmopolitanism and modernity (often symbolized by the hamburger) will be spread around the world.

Food advertising reflects changing food tastes, diet, and dietary habits. The extent of the references to nutrition, health claims, and weight loss has altered in advertisements in recent decades. Research has indicated that in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s there was an increase in references to health and weight loss in advertisements for hot and cold cereals, bread and cake mixes, frozen and pre-prepared entrees, peanut butter, canned and instant dry soup, and carbonated beverages in a range of women’s magazines. There was a significant rise in health claims in the 1980s, higher than in the 1960s, and the percentage of diet claims that appeared in food advertisements in the 1980s was significantly higher than the percentage reported in the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, between 1960 and 1980, there were substantial decreases in claims of quality, taste, status, and consumer satisfaction. These may have resulted from changes in women’s consumption and dieting behavior and the increased demand for food that is low in calories but high in nutrition. Concerns about increasing prevalence of obesity in the United States and campaigns against fast-food artificiality — both within the United States and beyond — will likely influence food advertising.

Brand Names

Central to the advertising of food is the promotion of brand names and trade names that distinguish between one manufacturer’s product and that of another. As the survival of these names depends on advertising, some brands and trade names have large advertising budgets allocated to them so that they can maintain their status as products and their place in the marketplace. Brands and trade names arose in the nineteenth century as a response to increased production and the need to efficiently and effectively market products. Brand names started to be promoted in the 1870s, after which their use spread quickly. Significant increases were especially noted in the early twentieth century. Even after they were rapidly adopted, the extent of their use varied geographically and throughout time. During World War II, when widespread restrictions caused materials and food shortages, brand names were abandoned in Europe and were replaced by utility products. They came into operation again once peacetime conditions were restored. In some cases this was not until well after all controls on food and other raw products were lifted. Especially developed in Western Europe, brand names were, however, prohibited in Eastern Europe.

Brand names and trademarks are consciously devised by manufacturers. They are based on existing names, mainly personal names or words, or a combination of the two; few have no recognizable origin. The most common are word names that include personal names of manufacturers such as Nestl é (confectionery manufacturer) and Campbell’s (the soup manufacturer), names of food-chain stores (Safeway), and the names of food products such as Mother’s Pride (bread). Arbitrary names include Saxa table salt. Names often have an association with prestige and a range of desirable attributes, such as quality (Ambrosia rice pudding); wholesomeness (Eden Vale dairy products, Just Juice tropical fruit juices, and Lean Cuisine low-calorie frozen foods); and nutritional value (Marathon confectionery bars). Other names describe ingredients, as with Coca-Cola, a drink made from coca leaves and cola nuts, and Bovril, a drink of concentrated essence of beef.

Each brand name has a number of functions: it ensures consistency and quality; it has a personality that makes the consumers identify with the product; it is a social and cultural marker that helps the consumers to identify who they are and the social group they belong to; it allows the consumers to gain esteem within their consumer group. These values or aspects of them are reflected in advertising campaigns and advertisements.

Because of the importance of brands and trademarks in identifying foods and other products, they have become legally protected. The first protective legislation in the United States was passed by Congress in 1870. It was altered with different juridical rulings and received its final codification in 1905. Legislation has also been introduced throughout the world. In Britain it has included the Trade Marks Act of 1938.

Food advertisements use a range of appeals to promote a product. Rational appeals tend to be used for healthy foods. Emotional appeals, which are more likely to be remembered, are used for a range of products that includes fun products, or «sin foods,» such as candy or desserts. Taste claims are especially important. Products are compared with similar products in side-by-side tests that point out the qualities their competition does not have (for example, the «Pepsi challenge»); these tests distinguish the product from its competitors by the ways in which it is beneficial to the consumer or puts the consumer at an advantage over those who do not use the product. Further, these tests suggest that the product is like an advertised brand in some way; they refer to the competition, state that the brand is at least as good as any other in a set, and they use experts to endorse the quality, taste, or value of the product so that it is given a heightened status. Nutritional claims are used particularly in advertisements for foods that benefit health and have health-giving qualities. Such claims may state that a product is «low» or reduced in calories, that it is «cholesterol-free» or has «reduced cholesterol»; food and drinks may be «lite» to distinguish them from standard foods. In the United States and some other countries, there are regulations governing the allowable fat content in foods billed as «low fat» and «reduced fat.»

Especially for branded foods, advertisements often use slogans to help the consumer remember the product. They link the product and its function. For many years, the slogan for the Mars candy bar has suggested that it gives the consumer energy to undertake a range of activities throughout the day: «A Mars a day helps you work, rest, and play.» The slogan «Bridge that gap with Cadbury’s Snack» suggested that the biscuit could be eaten to fill in the gap between meals.

Celebrity Endorsements

Food advertisers use a range of figures who enjoy public recognition to endorse or act as spokespeople for a product and recommend it to the public. Especially after 1920 advertisers were aware of the relationship between popular culture idols and their audiences. Important early endorsers included movie stars and popular entertainers. The list was later extended to include television stars and individuals from occupations such as politics, sports, the arts, and business. In an endorsement, an endorser makes the product familiar to the public. It can be done in a number of ways: explicitly («I endorse the product»); implicitly («I use this product»); imperatively («You should use the product»); and copresently (where the endorser appears with the product). In an endorsement, celebrities transfer meaning from themselves (their values, status, class, gender, age, personality, and lifestyle) to the product, and through it, to the consumer. Through that process, people consume a product that is associated with the star and their star image. Celebrities are chosen to represent values that are embodied in the product they endorse. The comedian Bill Cosby endorsed the soft drink Coca-Cola. Although there is a close relationship between the star and the product, not all star and product relations have successfully increased product sales. John Houseman failed as an endorser for McDonald’s although he had been successful in other endorsement campaigns. Endorsements fail when they do not succeed in transferring meaning: the values between the celebrity and the product are too wide for the meaning to move between the endorser and the product.

Controls on Advertising

All food advertising is governed by a number of controls. Some of these regulate advertising in general. Defamatory statements, false representations, offers to contract, incitements to crime, contempt of court, breach of copyright, and infringement of trademarks are covered by legislation that governs libel, deceit, contracts, crime, and the infringements of rights. More specifically, in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, legislation included the Indecent Advertisements Act of 1889 and the Advertisements Regulation Act of 1907, which was amended in 1925. At a wider level, the general law also affects all advertisements.

Codes of advertising have been issued as guidelines to advertisers. In the United States from 1911, steps were taken to provide codes of practice. Early codes were issued by the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World. Guidelines have also been expressed in a number of codes such as the British Code of Advertising. The Code, issued in 1979, embodies the principles that «all advertisements should be legal, decent, honest and truthful»; «all advertisements should be prepared with a sense of responsibility both to the consumer and to society»; and «all advertisements should conform to the principles of fair competition as generally accepted in business.» The codes contain specific rules that govern food advertising, packaging, and labeling of foodstuffs. They define how foods can be described and the nature and scope of the nutritional information presented on the packaging. Nutritional information has become increasingly widespread in the European Community and the United States. In Britain, sections of the Customs and Excise Act 1952 prohibit misdescription in advertisements of beer and spirits. The Food and Drugs Act (as subsequently amended) contains certain requirements as to advertising and labeling of food. A number of regulations deal specifically with the representation of food claims. Diet foods are particularly regulated, for example in the 1970 British Labeling of Food Regulations, which require that «where a claim is made in an advertisement or on a label that any food is an aid to slimming, it must be substantiated, and a statement must be included that the food cannot aid slimming except as part of a diet in which the total intake of calories is controlled, whether by calorie counting, low carbohydrate/high protein or other means.» Other aspects of «slimming» that are regulated include diet plans, aids to dieting, foods, appetite depressants, and weight-loss products in general. Parallel regulations and advertising codes have also been introduced in other countries such as the United States. In the 1980s in the United States, consumer protection remained the major rationale for the regulation of advertising. Other forces included new media technologies, issues of privacy and fairness, environmentalism, religion, changing economic conditions, the deregulation movement, and foreign regulatory initiatives made necessary by international trade agreements.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alden, Dana L., Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp, and Rajeev Batra. «Brand Positioning through Advertising in Asia, North America, and Europe: The Role of Global Consumer Culture.» Journal of Marketing 63 (1999): 75 – 87.

Ambler, Tim. «Do Brands Benefit Consumers?» International Journal of Advertising 16 (1997): 167 – 198.

Barr, S. «Nutrition in Food Advertising: Content Analysis of a Canadian Women’s Magazine, 1928 – 1986.» Journal of Nutrition Education 21 (1989): 64 – 71.

Benson, John. The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880-1980. Harlow: Longman, 1994.

Brown, B. W. Images of Family Life in Magazine Advertising, 1920 – 1978. New York: Praeger, 1981.

Buchanan, Bruce, and Ronald H. Smithies. «Taste Claims and Their Substantiation.» Journal of Advertising Research 31, no. 3 (June/July 1991): 19 – 35.

Fowles, Jib. Advertising and Popular Culture. Foundations of Popular Culture 5. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1996.

Harris, Ralph, and Arthur Seldon. Advertising in Action. London: Hutchinson, 1962.

Klassen, Michael L., Suzanne M. Wauer, and Sheila Cassel. «Increases in Health and Weight Loss Claims in Food Advertising in the Eighties.» Journal of Advertising Research 30, no. 6 (December 1990/January 1991): 32 – 37.

Kotz, K., and M. Story. «Food Advertisements during Children’s Saturday Morning Television Programming: Are They Consistent with Dietary Recommendations?» Journal of the American Dietetic Association 94 (1994): 1296 – 1300.

Lears, Jackson. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. New York: Basic Books, 1995.

Nevin, Terry R. Advertising in Britain: A History. London: Heineman, on behalf of the History of Advertising Trust, 1982.

Norris, J. D. Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 1865 – 1920. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1990.

O’Meara, M. A., ed. Brands and Their Companies. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.

Pease, Otis. The Responsibilities of American Advertising. Private Control and Public Influence, 1920 – 1940. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958.

Rijkens, Rein. European Advertising Strategies: The Profiles and Policies of Multinational Companies Operating in Europe. London: Cassell, 1992.

Robinson, Jeffrey. The Manipulators: A Conspiracy to Make Us Buy. London: Simon and Schuster, 1998.

Schudson, Michael. Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society. New York: Basic Books, 1984.