AdHealth: a feasibility study to measure digital food marketing to adolescents through Facebook

Abstract

Objective: To test the feasibility of a browser extension to estimate the exposure of adolescents to (un)healthy food and beverage advertisements on Facebook and the persuasive techniques used to market these foods and beverages. Design: A Chrome browser extension (AdHealth) was developed to automatically collect advertisements seen by participants on their personal Facebook accounts. Information was extracted and sent to a web server by parsing the Document Object Model tree representation of Facebook web pages. Key information retrieved included the advertisement type seen and duration of each ad sighting. The WHO-Europe Nutrient Profile Model was used to classify the healthiness of products advertised as permitted (healthy) or not permitted (unhealthy) to be advertised to children. Setting: Auckland, New Zealand. Participants: Thirty-four Facebook users aged 16–18 years. Results: The browser extension retrieved 4973 advertisements from thirty-four participants, of which 204 (4 %) were food-related, accounting for 1·1 % of the exposure duration. Of those food advertisements, 98 % were classified as not permitted, and 33·7 and 31·9 %, respectively, of those featured promotional characters or premium offers. The mean rate of exposure to not permitted food was 4·8 (sd = 2·5) advertisements per hour spent on Facebook. Conclusions: Using a Chrome extension to monitor exposure to unhealthy food and beverage advertisements showed that the vast majority of advertisements were for unhealthy products, despite numerous challenges to implementation. Further efforts are needed to develop tools for use across other social media platforms and mobile devices, and policies to protect young people from digital food advertising.

The Timing, Nature and Extent of Social Media Marketing by Unhealthy Food and Drinks Brands During the COVID-19 Pandemic in New Zealand

“…The current study adds further evidence that more comprehensive regulatory mechanisms are required to adequately protect New Zealanders from the marketing practices of the unhealthy food and beverage industry (23,48,58), particularly on Facebook where the COVID-washing posts were most prolific and had the most engagement. Social media platforms often have policies that prohibit or restrict the advertising of products and/or services relating to alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and/or weight loss to under 18 year-olds but unhealthy food and drinks marketing appears to have escaped scrutiny to date (59).…”

“…The marketing of unhealthy food and beverages is pervasive and prolific across multiple platforms, including online platforms (6,22,23). Food and beverage companies reportedly use social media to promote their products because of the ability of these platforms to engage consumers in an interactive relationship which increases purchasing intentions, extends reach, and improves brand loyalty (24).…”

Adolescents’ exposure to and evaluation of food promotions on social media: a multi-method approach

“…As a result, some studies on adolescent SMFM exposure used self-reported data based on questionnaires about frequency of exposure [ 16 , 17 ]. Other exposure studies were focused on one platform and had methodological limitations such as restrictions to the type of screen recorded (i.e., no smartphone) or type of data collected (i.e., only advertising or a fixed list of brands investigated) [ 21 , 22 ]. Others relied on self-collection of social media content from adolescents’ own social media accounts [ 8 , 23 ].…”

Impact of a voluntary industry code for advertising food to children and young people: an analysis of New Zealand television data

“…Between 2015 and 2018, the total number of unhealthy food advertisements overall decreased. This may have been due to a shift of unhealthy food advertisements to online marketing such as Facebook, where 98 % of food advertisements exposed to young people in New Zealand were unhealthy (32) . However, the proportion of all food advertisements on television that were unhealthy remained high.…”

“…Barriers to monitoring include the ethical challenges of collecting personal data from social media users, and personalised tailoring of advertisements depending on individual use of media (44,45,48) . Options could be to use a browser extension to monitor advertisements seen online (49) or to utilise a 2019 comprehensive monitoring framework developed by WHO (45) .…”