FOOD MARKETING

The marketing of even a single food: 

product can be a complicated process involving many producers and companies. The food marketing system is the largest direct and indirect nongovernment employer in the United States. Pomeranz & Adler, 2015, define food marketing is defined as a chain of marketing activities that take place within the food system between a food organization and the consumer. This has the potential to be a complicated procedure, as there are many processes that are used prior to the sale the food product. These include food processing, wholesaling, retailing, food service and transport. Due to these many processes, a multitude of organizations have to be involved in the sale of one food product. For example, approximately fifty-six organizations are involved in the making of one can of chicken noodle soup. These organizations not only include the processors who make the ingredients for the product, but also involve the companies who manufacture the cans, print the labels and transport the product. Therefore, on a global scale, the food marketing industry is one of the largest direct and indirect employers.

For Schaffner & Schroder, 1998, food marketing is the act of communicating to the consumer through a range of marketing techniques in order to add value to a food product and persuade the consumer to purchase. This includes all activities that occur in between the completion of a product through to the purchasing process of consumers. Food marketing systems differ worldwide due to the level of development in the particular country, economically and technologically (Kaynak, 1999).Understanding and interpreting a particular countries food marketing techniques also requires taking into account the socio-economic, cultural, legal-political and technological environment of that country (Kaynak, 1999).

In the fragmentation phase, the United States was divided into numerous geographic fragments because transporting food was expensive, leaving most production, distribution, and selling locally based.

In the unification phase, distribution was made possible by railroads, coordination of sales forces was made possible by the telegraph and telephone, and product consistency was made possible by advances in manufacturing. This new distribution system was led by meat processors such as Arm our and Swift in Midwestern cities and by companies such as Heinz, Quaker Oats, Campbell Soup, and Coca-Cola, which sold their brands nationally.

In deciding what type of new food products a consumer would most prefer, a manufacturer can either try to develop a new food product or try to modify or extend an existing food. For example, a sweet, flavored yogurt drink would be a new product, but milk in a new flavor (such as chocolate strawberry) would be an extension of an existing product. There are three steps to both developing and extending: generate ideas, screen ideas for feasibility, and test ideas for appeal. Only after these steps will a food product make it to national market. Of one hundred new food product ideas that are considered, only six make it to a supermarket shelf.

The food industry faces numerous marketing decisions. Money can be invested in brand building (through advertising and other forms of promotion) to increase either quantity demanded or the price consumers are willing to pay for a product. Coca-Cola, for example, spends a great deal of money both on perfecting its formula and on promoting the brand. This allows Coke to charge more for its product than can makers of regional and smaller brands. Manufacturers may be able to leverage their existing brand names by developing new product lines. For example, Heinz started out as a brand for pickles but branched out into ketchup. Some brand extensions may involve a risk of damage to the original brand if the quality is not good enough. Coca Cola, for example, refused to apply the Coke name to a diet drink back when artificial sweeteners had a significantly less attractive taste. Coke created Tab Cola, but only when aspartame (NutraSweet) was approved for use in soft drinks did Coca Cola come out with a Diet Coke. Manufacturers that have invested a great deal of money in brands may have developed a certain level of consumer brand loyalty—that is, a tendency for consumers to continue to buy a preferred brand even when an attractive offer is made by competitors. For loyalty to be present, it is not enough to merely observe that the consumer buys the same brand consistently.

  

In recent years, food marketing has been criticized by professionals as being a major factor in contributing to childhood obesity. Nestle (2006) suggests that food marketing purposely targets children who are easily influenced at such a young age to eat high-sugar drinks and food with little nutritional benefit. The fact that areas of food marketing are linked to obesity is concerning, as well as how easy it is to market to children and affect their food choices. Television and print media still stand as the traditional communication channels for food marketing, but other popular approaches are also more prevalent these days. These include the Internet, toys, packaging, video games, blockbuster films, character licensing of children's toys and celebrity advertising (McGinnis, Appleton Gootman, & Kraak, 2006). The employment of these food marketing strategies is growing, and are said to be partly responsible for swelling rates of childhood obesity (Cartere, 2009).

Product placement in children's films and television shows gives food marketers more power to get children familiar with their brand and to directly interact with this market segment (Cartere, 2009). The power brands have through food marketing on television is significant because television audiences automatically are more enticed in an advertisement as it is playing in front of them, forming stronger predispositions for brands (Kline, 2010). Accusations come into play when this saturation happens as children are not equipped with adequate knowledge to make smart nutritional choices, and food marketing is therefore sometimes blamed for children's unhealthy lifestyles (Kline, 2010). Children are a fast expanding market segment, firstly because they yield influence over their parents buying, but also because they are future consumers themselves (Cartere, 2009). Food marketers capitalize on the fact most children trouble their parents for a product they have seen on television until they receive it, giving children high bargaining power. According to McGinnis et al. (2006), by the time children are two years old, the majority can identify brands in supermarkets and demand them by name. It has been argued that marketers also portray some foods to children as exclusive only to them, implying children know better about their nutrition than their parents.

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