How has branding of a product influenced your eating habits?

McDonald’s Tastes Better!
A recent study dramatically illustrated the impact that advertising and branding has on young children’s food preferences (Robinson, Borzekowski, Matheson, & Kraemer, 2007). Researchers presented a group of preschoolers with five pairs of identical foods: 1/4 of a McDonalds hamburger, 1 chicken McNugget, 3 McDonald’s French fries, 3 oz. of 1% milk, and 2 baby carrots. Although the foods were exactly the same, one set was presented in McDonald’s wrappers and the other set had plain wrappers. The children were asked if the two pairs tasted the same or to point to the one they thought tasted the best. For all foods (even carrots!), children preferred the food in the McDonald’s wrappers. This effect was more pronounced for children with more television sets in their homes and children who ate food from McDonald’s more often. Based on these findings, the researchers recommended regulating marketing to young children and also suggested that branding may be a useful strategy for improving young children’s eating behaviors. Discuss:
Paragraph1: How has branding of a product influenced your eating habits?
Paragraph 2: How marketing towards children should be regulated? Look up how the U.S. does it compared to other countries and include what you find.
Paragraph 3. If you think brand name health food could be more appealing to children. How could this be done? In other words, pretend you are a Madison Avenue advertising agency and come up with ways to convince children of the merits of eating a particular healthy food. (Example: The cartoon, “Popeye, the Sailor Man” did wonders in promoting spinach to kids.)

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