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Industry Group Raises Public Profile on Obesity Issue September 16, 2005 QwikFIND ID: AAQ93D By Ira Teinowitz

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- Under continuing pressure from family health advocates and legislators, the ad industry is stepping up its review of children's marketing. Related Stories: SOFT-DRINK INDUSTRY ISSUES NEW SCHOOL POLICIES Moves to Preempt Government Bans on Soda Sales FOOD INDUSTRY BRACES FOR TWO-DAY FTC HEARING Trade Group and Critics Announce Preemptive Marketing Strategies FOOD MARKETERS' SELF-REGULATION CALLED A FAILURE Clash Between Industry and Advocacy Groups Sets Scene for FTC Conference MARKETER OBESITY EFFORTS GET LOW CONSUMER MARKS 58% Believe Food Companies Don't Do Enough SENATOR MOCKS FOOD INDUSTRY EFFORTS TO MONITOR ADS Criticizes Marketers for Promotions and Tie-ins FOOD ADVERTISING PUSHED INTO HARSH SPOTLIGHT CARU Stiffens Guidelines; Faults Burger King and Wrigley Ad Campaigns KAISER STUDY DOCUMENTS CHILDHOOD MEDIA SATURATION Sen. Hillary Clinton Uses Data to Criticize Marketers, Media Companies KRAFT TO STOP ADVERTISING SOME FOODS TO CHILDREN Marketing Strategy Shifted to Emphasize More Nutritious Products GROUP CALLS FOR JUNK FOOD AD BAN ON CHILDRENS' SHOWS Proposed Guidelines Target 18-Year-Olds GROCERY MAKERS LOBBY AGAINST FOOD ADVERTISING CURBS Want Better Promotion of Existing Self-Regulation Programs FOOD MARKETERS DEFEND ADVERTISING PRACTICES Obesity Statements Delivered to Absentee Congressional Panel

The National Advertising Review Council (NARC) yesterday said it will expand its panel of academic experts to help set standards for reviewing ads and has asked its Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) to take a closer look into several controversial areas: product placement, use of cartoon characters and advergaming.

The NARC is the marketing industry’s self regulatory body for hearing complaints about ads and is run by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. It is funded, in part, by the three major advertising associations: The Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the American Advertising Federation.

NARC president-CEO James R. Guthrie said the efforts were a response to some of the concerns raised at a recent Federal Trade Commission/Health and Human Services workshop questioning the role marketing plays in the childhood obesity crisis. He called the actions “the most significant new issues undertaken by CARU” since it examined children’s privacy in 1996.

“It’s a sign of fear," said Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, an advocacy organization against the commercialization of childhood. "Advertisers are very afraid that they will be held responsible for producing an epidemic of marketing-related diseases in our kids.” He called the changes “a stream of verbiage that tries to cloak doing nothing.”

In other steps NARC and CARU plan to make filing complaints against marketers easier and more visible by including links to complaint forms on local Better Business Bureaus Web sites.

NARC also said it would make it easier for non profits to review the results of CARU’s investigations and offer ad pre-screenings to companies that aren’t members of NARC or CARU.

The review of advergaming advertising practices has been underway for several months with results and recommendations due later this month, but the forming of task forces to review the appropriate use of cartoon characters and product placement within children's programming are both new.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) recently suggested a ban on paid product placement in some children’s programming.

“We are pleased,” said GMA President and CEO C. Manly Molpus, calling the response thoughtful and quick.

But Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist who founded the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood suggested the ad industry “is starting to act like the tobacco industries of the 1980s and 1990s. “It’s a sign that the movement to limit or ban advertising to kids is beginning to succeed,” adding that the actions don’t go far enough. “It’s the government, not the corporations who should be the guardians of public health,” she said.

“There is no appropriate use of cartoon characters to sell anything to kids," Ms. Linn continued. "And technically the problem with product placement is not placement on kid's shows; it is placement on shows with high kid audiences.” She cited high children's viewership for American Idol as an example. The show is widely regarded as the poster child of the product placement business.