Kids get a taste of food-related advertising online | Technology | Los Angeles Times

Kids get a taste of food-related advertising online | Technology | Los Angeles Times: "A new report out today revealed some unsurprising information: Marketers spend a lot of money trying to get kids hooked on foods such as Shrek cereal and Pirates of the Caribbean waffles. What's a little more surprising is that they don't spend much money marketing food to kids where so many of them hang out -- on the Internet. In 2006, the time period that the online-spending portion of the report covered, food companies only allocated 5% of their youth marketing dollars online. (Of course, the online advertising market is growing by double digits every year, much faster than overall ad spending, so the percentage has probably increased since 2006.)

The marketing-to-kids report (PDF download) released this morning by the Federal Trade Commission, with the pithy title 'Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities and Self Regulation,' says that the relatively low price tag for marketing to kids on the Web doesn't mean that companies aren't reaching kids there, however."