The Battle on Childrens Food Marketing.

Modern day life for the majority of children involves going to school, watching television and playing computer games. Technology has become the norm for a lot of families and so it becomes subliminal that they are being exposed to so many marketing techniques by food retailers. Children see a biscuit advertisement with puppies coming out of the packet and so they want to try these biscuits, they see a cereal box with their favourite TV character on the box and so they want the cereal. It's become hard to avoid the vast amount of techniques that companies are using, but they aren't all bad. This research blog aims to uncover the truth about advertising to children and the advantages and disadvantages in doing so.

Monday, 11 January 2016

Primary Research: Supermarkets

As another form of primary research, my plan was to contact some of the larger supermarkets to ask them questions which will help me outline some of the more positive effects of food marketing. I was hoping they could outline some of the positive steps they have taken in the past or are currently taking in order to use food marketing in a positive way and to promote a healthy lifestyle.

 I wrote to 6 different supermarkets including Marks and Spencers, Aldi, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose. 

 I asked the following:
Hi There,
I’m wondering if you could point me in the right direction. I’m currently a university student writing my final year dissertation focusing on food marketing to children.
I’m hoping to pursue a career in food marketing and so I’d like my essay to focus on the positives of food marketing, rather than the negatives which seem to be portrayed in the media a lot. So far, I have struggled to find enough content which portrays food marketing to children as a positive and so I was hoping I could gather some research by gaining knowledge from some large supermarkets.
Is there any chance you would be able to highlight any steps you have taken in the past or are currently taking in order to promote healthy eating and lifestyle to your customers in terms of advertisements, packaging, products, slogans or even where certain products are placed in stores.
I truly believe that food marketing has far more positive effects than negative and would really appreciate any help in gathering some information which will help back me up throughout my dissertation and give food marketing a much more positive reputation to the general public.
Thank you for your time,
Jessica Parry
email: jessica.plant@hotmail.co.uk tel: 07931535536
University of Cumbria - Year 3 BA(Hons) Graphic Design Student


Out of all 6 supermarkets, Waitrose, Marks and Spencers, Tesco and Sainsbury's got back to me. Aldi and Morrisons did not reply.

None of the supermarkets gave me any direct answers but they did give the following responses:

Hi Jessica, thanks for your message and interest in Waitrose.
I'm afraid that due to the number of requests we receive, we’re not able to respond precisely to every question we get.
You can find a wide range of information about Waitrose via the following link - www.waitrose.com/ourcompany/index.aspx which you may find of interest and should give you some ideas and information for your studies.
To download Waitrose Environment report please use the following link -www.waitrose.com/ourcompany/CSR.aspx
www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk contains downloads of the John Lewis Partnership brochure and Annual reports.
On the link below we have put together a Resources section on the John Lewis Partnership website to help you find out more about the retail industry. This includes a selection of the main trade associations, commercial information and news sources, Government sources, academic institutions and consumer interest groups that together should help you find what you need. You will also find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Partnership - www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/resources.html
For Nutritional information our Nutritionist recommends the following links -www.nutrition.org and www.waitrose.com/food/healthandnutrition/index.aspx
Employment opportunities within the John Lewis Partnership can be accessed by the following link - www.waitrosejobs.com
On behalf of Waitrose I’d like to wish you every success with your studies. Thanks.



Hi Jessica, due to the number of requests we receive, we can't help you with a specific project. There is however, a wealth of information available about our company on our corporate website. http://tinyurl.com/bsxhves Liz





Hello Jessica,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us via Facebook. That sounds like a very interesting topic to write on for your dissertation.
All of our publicly available information can be found on our Tesco PLC website which you can view by following this link: http://www.tescoplc.com/
Kind regards Matthew - Customer Care



Hi Jessica, thanks for your message. We can't send anything direct but please follow this link to our Student Section: http://bit.ly/1ywtEkj. Merry Christmas, Donna smile emoticon


I plan to look into the links given in more detail and see if I can gather any answers this way.
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