MARKETING TO CHILDREN

Urgent need to restrict unhealthy marketing to children, say academics

By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2025

NZ children are being exposed to unhealthy food, alcohol and gambling marketing 76 times every day, new study finds.

Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand are calling for restrictions on unhealthy food, alcohol and gambling marketing, after a new study found that children are exposed to it 76 times every day.

The study, published in the academic journal, Social Science & Medicine, tracked 12-year-olds wearing cameras over a four-day period, enabling researchers to capture exactly what children see in their daily lives, and offering parents a rare, unfiltered view of the relentless advertising their children face.

It found children are exposed to nearly 250% more unhealthy marketing than healthy messages. Junk food was most common at 68 exposures per day. Coca-Cola emerged as the most common brand overall, appearing more than six times each day.

Beer brands dominated the alcohol advertising seen by children, and almost all of the gambling marketing recorded came from government-owned entities, such as Lotto.

Photo: Charles Mosley Jr from Pexels

Fifteen multinational companies were responsible for more than half of all the junk food and alcohol marketing children saw.

The study’s co-author, Professor Louise Signal, Director of the Health Promotion and Policy Research Unit at the University of Otago, says the impact of this exposure is significant. It contributes to problems such as obesity, cancer, addiction and debt – costing the country billions of dollars in health care and lost productivity.

“The saturation of harmful marketing undermines the values parents work hard to teach at home, replacing family guidance with the influence of multinational corporations.”

Study shows adults the marketing that their children see

Associate Professor Leah Watkins, study co-author and Director for Masters’ Programmes in the Department of Marketing, believes that this is the first time anywhere in the world that adults have been able to see, in real time, how pervasive this kind of marketing is for children.

“Young people cannot fully understand the persuasive intent of advertising until around the age of 16, leaving them especially vulnerable to corporate tactics designed to win their loyalty early,” she notes.

The study found that children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods were subjected to far more unhealthy marketing, due to the amount of junk food marketing they saw.

“This is often due to the higher density of takeout outlets and outdoor advertising in these areas, meaning that marketing not only damages health but also deepens existing inequalities,” Watkins observes.

One of the clearest lessons from the research is that strong government regulation works, she says.

“Children saw no tobacco marketing in the study, as it is banned. In contrast, industries such as junk food, alcohol and gambling – which rely heavily on self-regulation – continue to saturate children’s environments with harmful messages.”

The researchers recommend comprehensive laws that cover alcohol, gambling and junk food marketing.

“This is a call for family-friendly protections that safeguard children’s health, uphold parental authority, and ensure that the voices shaping young minds are those of parents and communities – not multinational corporations,” Watkins states.