Kellogg’s escapes censure
Kellogg’s has avoided censure for an online game to promote its Krave cereal, despite a complaint that it encouraged an unhealthy lifestyle in children.
The online game, which ran on Facebook and promoted its Krave chocolate cereal brand, encouraged participants to guide a super hero character over platforms and jump on pieces of chocolate.
The Alliance For Better Food & Farming challenged whether the game “encouraged poor nutritional habits and an unhealthy lifestyle in children”.
The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that as Facebook checked a user’s date of birth in their profile information before it allowed them to play the game, Kellogg’s had “taken steps to ensure that people under 17 could not access the game” and therefore did not encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children.
The complaint, which was not upheld, comes as health campaigners filed a “super-complaint” to the advertising watchdog over online advertising of “junk food”.
Charity groups The Children’s Food Campaign (CFC) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) filed 54 separate complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority accusing food brands such as Kerry Foods and Cadbury of targeting children with online advertising for “junk food”.
The campaign group wants there to be new legislation with stricter rules on what can, and cannot, be advertised online.
