And the award goes to....

The Parent's Jury just held it's third annual Children's TV Food Advertising Awards. The Parent's Jury is a parent's group concerned with aggressive junk-food marketing. These annual awards consist of three main categories. The three categories are "Pester Power", "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Parent's Choice".

It is no surprise that the winner of the "Pester Power" award was given to McDonald's. In fact, this is the third year they were chosen as the award winner. If you didn't pick up on it, this is only the third year of the Children's TV Food Advertising Awards, indicating that McDonald's has won this award all throughout. This year McDonald's was selected because of their use of SpongeBob SquarePants toys to lure children to their restaurants. The SpongeBob SquarePants toys were given away in their happy meals.

McDonald's main reason for being chosen was because of their continuous unethical practices in manipulating children. As mentioned in an early blog post, children prefer food that is wrapped in a McDonald's wrapper. Despite receiving this award for the third year in a row, McDonald's states that they have reduced their advertising directed at children by 60 percent. McDonald's also has changed their happy meal options to include apple slices and water, as healthy options for children.

The recipient of the "Smoke and Mirrors" awards went to Kellogg's cereal for their Coco Pops commercials. The "Smoke and Mirrors" award goes to companies that market unhealthy food options as nutritious. Kellogg's took the prize when they marketed their Coco Pops cereal as having 55 percent wholegrain. The fact of the matter is the cereal contains 28 grams of sugar, which was left out of advertisements for this product.

Finally the winner of the "Parent's Choice" award went to Woolworths. The took the award for their Fresh Fruit Kids ad . The ad featured a young girl eating fruits, vegetables, and cheese.

Although these awards help show advertisers that we are against manipulative marketing to children, this will do nothing to change their ways. They know their advertisements work and will continue to exploit the children because they are easily influenced. Along with these awards to show marketers we want a change, the government needs to stare making changes governing advertising to children.

In Australia, their government is fighting to put an end to these deceptive advertisements targeting children. They are expected to ban the use of licensed characters to market junk food to children. This means characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants or Shrek will not appear on McDonald's commercials and perhaps be banned from their infamous happy meals. Also they are trying to ban advertising confectionery, sweetened breakfast cereals and fast food restaurants from children's programs.

These measures although harsh, are the only way to stop children from being targeted. Also these may lead to companies such as cereal companies and fast food restaurants to begin make their products healthier. Advertisers are aware of child obesity problems and have done nothing to stop it. Even tactics such as the Children's TV Food Advertising Awards held by the Parent's Jury have not shamed them into changing there ways. If they refuse to change because of ethical reasons, we must make them change based on legal ramifications.

Information for this post from Parent's Jury