Sos Over Sms To Sell Snack Foods To Kids
Sun Herald
Sunday June 27, 2004
SNACK food companies are using text messaging competitions to collect mobile phone numbers of young people, raising the concerns of healthy eating groups.
With increasing numbers of teenagers and children using mobile phones, big businesses have been altering their marketing strategies to capitalise on the change.Nestle and Cadbury Schweppes are two of several companies which have in recent months asked young consumers to send an SMS to enter competitions.The development has set alarm bells ringing with the Coalition on Food Advertising to Children, a health advocacy group that is concerned companies will soon be sending direct marketing messages to children on their phones."SMS marketing is unsupervised by parents," spokeswoman Kaye Mehta said. "While parents might be watching television at the same time as their child [monitoring their viewing of ads], a child has their own mobile phone and it's an unpoliced situation."Children are vulnerable to exploitation."A competition being run by food giant Nestle in association with its Milo bars requires consumers to supply their mobile number for entry. The company website states that details collected from competitions can be used for marketing purposes.But Nestle Australia's director of marketing communications Ian Alwill said the company had an "opt-in only" policy for SMS marketing material.A Cadbury Schweppes spokesman did not respond to repeated inquiries about SMS marketing and its recent The Lord Of The Rings promotion.
© 2004 Sun Herald
