Branding obesity
Overview
There is increasing evidence to show that food advertising, especially to children, can significantly impact dietary behaviours and food preferences (Handsley et al. 2009). Unlike television, which is a passive activity, we engage and interact with the internet in an active, self-managed process. By integrating brand messages into active learning, food advergaming has the potential to impact food behaviours and preferences to an even greater extent than food television advertising. Relatively little research has been carried out on the impact of the internet on food behaviours, particularly through phenomena such as advergaming.
The definition of advergaming is still a fluid one. A publication commissioned by the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation (Moore 2006) focusing on the impact of advergaming on children is one of the first substantial investigations into the impact of the internet in consumer choice. Food advergaming appears on the internet in several different guises, with some games directly advertising food products incorporated into the game, and others promoting products by placing advertisements and billboards alongside games. These games do not just promote fast food itself, but also perpetuate stereotypes and contexts in which such foods might be found, served and consumed.
The field of food virtual reality and gaming continues to experience rapid development. At the time of the Moore (2006) report, advergaming largely revolved around the use of internet-based games to promote food products and images. However, companies such as Sony Online Entertainment aim to integrate ‘real’ food ordering into ‘virtual’ game play. In 2005, the Sony's roleplaying game EverQuest II embedded a link to Pizza Hut in its game, so that gamers could simply type a command, during the game, in order to order home-delivered fast food online. Technological advances continue to blur the boundaries between virtual and material foods. The implications of food acquisition and consumption being increasingly integrated into ‘virtual reality’ and away from social reality are not clear.
Despite increasing evidence that passive food advertisement on television can impact food behaviours, there is ongoing debate at a policy level about whether or not to more heavily regulate food advertisement. Handley et al. (2009) report that the previous and current Australian governments continue to take no action because diets and lifestyles are of personal and parental choice, and should not be subjected to government regulation. While policy-level debate is limited to brand advertising on television, it is clear that emerging creative advertising strategies, such as advergaming and integration into virtual reality are emerging.
As the crossover between the virtual and real becomes increasingly blurred by modern technologies, and increasingly difficult to regulate, it is vital that we understand better how activities such as advergaming can impact nutrition and health and, if possible, how such technologies could be creatively adapted to contribute to improved health and nutrition, rather than rising rates of obesity. A proactive approach to emerging technologies such as advergaming might provide unique solutions to obesity in lieu of contributing to poor health outcomes. Such an approach would first require us to recognise obesity as a social phenomenon, rather than an issue of individual lifestyle. It would then require collaboration between government, academic researchers and private technology enterprises.
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Virtual reality pizza |
Fast food games
The world of advergaming is rapidly developing. In 2009, Sneaky Games proposed an advergaming classification system that more accurately describes the level of brand involvement than the previous system of Above, Below and Through the Line games (from Sneaky Games):
Sponsored Advergame – A brand sponsors the game but the brand itself isn’t part of game play or the gaming experience. The sponsorship is usually announced before, or sometimes after, the game. Sponsored games could appear on the sponsor’s website or on a third party site.
Integrated Brand Advergame – The brand appears in the game, though it doesn’t figure prominently as part of the game play.
Playable Brand Advergame – The brand figures prominently as part of the game play.
Brandistraction [‘bran-distraction’] – An empirically entertaining game in which the brand and the game are inseparable in at least these two ways: Without the brand, the game isn’t playable; the game isn’t winnable unless the player acts in a way consistent with previously established attributes of the brand.
The below is a range of examples of advergames that are free to download and/or play online. The list is not exhaustive - if you have a favourite food game that isn't listed, please email the link through to oxfordobesity[at]googlemail.com.
Brand advergames |
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Viral advertising
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Burger King Germany produced a full-length parody of Pimp My Ride. |
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The concept of an ad campaign for Burger King US was to find 'whopper virgins' - people who had never tried a burger before - and carry out the 'world's purest taste test'. The advertisements concluded with Thai Hmong tribesmen, Transylvanian farmers and Inuit from Greenland choosing the Whopper over a McDonald's Big Mac.
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Burger King offered a free Whopper burger to anyone willing to publicly sacrifice ten 'friends'. Users of the social networking site Facebook could earn themselves a free whopper by 'de-friending' ten people fron their account and allowing them to be notified of the reason for it. The application has since been disabled by Facebook, but not before people's 'love for the Whopper sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships'. |