• Adweek, Thursday, November 16, 2006 11:31 AM

Rising concerns about childhood obesity--and mounting negative press--have led some top food marketers to tighten up self-regulatory efforts on food and beverage ads that target kids under age 12. The Council of Better Business Bureaus and the National Advertising Review Council have established the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a voluntary program with 10 major companies as the first charter members.

The idea is to shift the focus of ad messages to children and encourage healthier choices and lifestyles. Top spenders on the board include Cadbury Schweppes, Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Hershey, Kellogg, Kraft, McDonald's, PepsiCo and Unilever--a group that accounts for about two-thirds of all food and beverage TV ads aimed at kids.

But Susan Linn, co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, is less than impressed. This is "the clearest indication yet that, when it comes to marketing to children, self-regulation has failed. In the midst of an epidemic of childhood obesity, the industry has proposed a series of guidelines for junk-food advertising that are window dressing at best."

Read the whole story at Adweek »