Admittedly, I’m behind the curve sometimes when it comes to technology. Yes I do all the social networking for my freelance writing business, and keep in touch with what family members are doing on Facebook.
But there are many places where I have not ventured. I use only a portion of the features on my cell phone, for example. There is a slew of interactive websites of which I know little.
Which brings us to the topic of something called advergames. When my daughter was little, and we went into a chain restaurant, the hostess would often give her a placemat and a set of crayons. On the placemat was a little game that usually featured a character or situation that involved promotion of the franchise.
But now companies are reaching right into people’s homes to find kids interested in playing interactive web games that promote their products.
There’s even a website that has assembled these games for easy access – advergames.com. Kids can pick out games that strike their fancy, or they can build their own personalized page of favorites by creating an account. Some of the companies sponsoring the advergames include Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola and 7-Eleven.
Advertising to children has always been the subject of debate. And now a study by the University of California at Davis contends that the new medium is being used to sell high-fat, high-sugar foods and beverages to kids. Researchers, who published their findings in the May issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, would like food companies that target kids to come up with some content standards.
“We knew based on our previous research that food advertising on television programming for children is dominated by high-fat quick-service restaurant options and high-sugar cereals and candy,” said Diana Cassady, senior author of the study and an associate professor of public health sciences. “At the same time, we noticed a lot of that TV advertising included corporate websites, and we wanted to find out how these sites were being used to communicate about food to kids.”
Cassady and her colleagues analyzed beverage and food websites advertised on the Cartoon Network and on Nickelodeon in 2006 and 2007. They found that 84 percent of these sites included advergames.
“I was astounded by how often logos or actual food products were integrated into the games,” said co-author Jennifer Culp. “For example, some games used candy or cereal as game pieces. In others, a special code that was only available by purchasing a particular cereal was necessary to advance to higher game levels.”
The researchers aren’t attacking the concept of advergames. But they’d like companies to self-regulate by including nutritional and physical exercise information.
Advertising works, which is why there’s so much of it on TV, radio, in print and on the Internet. Kids are particularly susceptible. The UC Davis study is a reminder that new advertising vehicles are being created all the time, and we need to carefully consider their impact.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ejk/417437288/
Headline Health 
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