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To sell snacks, they use a Cowtapult

To lure kids to their products, foodmakers are advertising by using catchy Internet games.

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 20, 2006

WASHINGTON - Download a Cap'n Crunch screensaver. Send a friend an Oreo e-card. Play Chuck E. Cheese's tic-tac-toe. Vote for your favorite Skittles flavor.

These are some of the interactive features companies are using on their Web sites as a way to attract and advertise to a generation that can't imagine life without the Internet.

Eighty-five percent of the top food brands that target children through TV marketing also use corporate-sponsored Web sites to advertise to children, a study released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

Unlike 30-second TV ads, company Web sites have the potential to attract visitors for an unlimited amount of time and expose them to specific brands in a more personal and engaging way.

The sophisticated online marketing efforts are drawing children into playing hundreds of free Internet games featuring their favorite foods, such as Chips Ahoy Soccer Shootout, Pop-Tart Slalom and Cheetos Cowtapult.

The sites "don't just include advertisements, they are ads themselves," said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"Online advertising is potentially way more powerful than television advertising ever dreamed of being," said Vicky Rideout, who oversaw the research for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Of the 77 Web sites analyzed in the study, 73 percent included "advergames," or online games featuring a product or brand character.

For example, Web-surfing kids on the Kellogg's Fun K Town Web site can "race against time while collecting delicious Kellogg's cereal" or "take a ride through Lucky's Wild Chocolate Mine" on the Lucky Charms site.

Nearly a third of the sites included an option for visitors to spread the word about a product to their friends by participating in what the study calls "viral marketing."

Some Web sites have incentives for visitors to send "e-cards" or invitations to visit the site. Those could include access to more features or tips to solve a puzzle.

"The question is if children will see (the e-mails) as marketing at all, or just a message from a friend," said Elizabeth Moore, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame who conducted the study.

The age of the target population is certainly a concern, said Dale Kunkel, a member of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Food Marketing to Children and Youth.

"Children under 8 have a unique vulnerability for commercial persuasion," Kunkel said.

Given that childhood obesity is becoming increasingly widespread, health experts have expressed concern over the types of food being advertised to children. Many of the online sites analyzed in the study advertise candy, cookies, soft drinks and fast food restaurants.

Dangerous weight is on the rise in children, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rate of obese and overweight kids has climbed to 18 percent of boys and 16 percent of girls, up from 14 percent four years ago.

Companies such as Kraft Foods, however, say they are trying to change the types of food they advertise to children. Kraft has a policy to advertise only products meeting its "sensible solution" criteria - products it says provide certain levels of nutrients while limiting calories, fats, sodium and sugar - in broadcast and print media seen primarily by children ages 6 to 11. The company has said it will extend the policy to its Web sites by the end of the year.

A dozen of the Web sites analyzed advertise brands owned by Kraft Foods.

Using Web sites to advertise is "certainly a way we talk to our customers, but it's a small part," said Nancy Daigler, vice president of corporate and government affairs at Kraft Foods.

The analyzed Web sites received more than 12.2-million visits from children ages 2 to 11 within a three-month period last year, according to data from Nielsen NetRatings.

Information from Cox News Service and the Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified July 20, 2006, 01:20:29]