• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, July 19, 2006

The marketing of junk food to kids has drawn a lot of attention lately, with some observers wondering whether ads promoting high-calorie, low-nutrition items have contributed to a rise in the number of overweight children.

To date, most of the attention has focused on TV ads, but a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that nearly all food marketers--85 percent--who aim television ads at kids also attempt to reach them online via branded Web sites.

And those sites might be far more captivating than TV ads, according to the report. "Online advertising's reach isn't as broad as that of television, but it's much deeper," said Vicky Rideout, vice president and director of Kaiser's Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health, in a statement.

The report, based on an analysis of 77 branded food Web sites, found that 73 percent contained advergames, ranging from one to more than 60 games per site. Sixty-four percent of the sites encouraged kids to forward information to their friends virally. Other common features included sweepstakes and promotions (65 percent), on-demand TV ads (53 percent), incentives to buy the product (38 percent) and memberships (25 percent). The sites promoted a range of brands, including Chips Ahoy, Chuck E. Cheese, M&M's and Pop-Tarts. Kaiser Family Foundation researchers also reported that more than half of the sites--51 percent--included information about nutrition, and 27 percent had information about healthy eating. Fewer than one in five product-driven sites--18 percent--clearly indicated that they carried ads, according to the report.

The report itself doesn't call for any change--legislative or otherwise. Rather, its stated purpose is to fill a gap in data about online food marketing to children. But coming at a time when legislators are giving increased scrutiny to TV food ads, it wouldn't be surprising if it results in new questions to food marketers about their online initiatives.