How brands appear in children's movies. A systematic content analysis of the past 25 Years

Abstract

Based on a theoretical framework of product placement characteristics, we present the most comprehensive content analysis of children's movies to date. We analyzed the integration of brands in 250 movies from 1991 to 2015. We found that 64.4% of all movies contained at least one brand placement. Comedies and movies produced in the US contained a higher number of brand placements compared to other genres and non-US movies. Animated movies and movies presenting a nature-, or fantasyscenery contained a comparatively low number of placements. Brands were inserted mostly visually, and placed in the centre of the screen without explicit evaluation. Placements frequently presented a physical or verbal interaction with a main character. This practice was found to increase over time even though the sole number of brand placements remained stable over the past 25 years. Implications for parents, consumer-advocacy-groups, and advertising researchers are discussed.

Sugary, fatty, and prominent: food and beverage appearances in children's movies from 1991 to 2015

“…In line with previous content analyses, we measured food appearances as verbal mentioning and/or visual depictions of food (including beverages). Only clearly recognizable depictions of food (longer than 1 sec) were coded.…”

“…Our coding scheme was based on predefined movie chapters of the DVDs. Hence, all food indications of one type of food within a chapter were considered as a single depiction of a food, similar to the scene‐coding scheme applied in previous content analyses . This is a technical presetting provided on a DVD, which summarizes coherent storylines of the movie.…”

“…We measured integration by assessing centrality, evaluation, interaction, and consumption. Centrality distinguished background placements (ie, presented on the second image plane), central placements (shown on the first image plane), and close‐ups (ie, depicted the brand on the first image plane on more than 50% of the screen; α= .71‐.79) . Furthermore, verbal indications were classified as central (α = .79‐.90) .…”

“…Centrality distinguished background placements (ie, presented on the second image plane), central placements (shown on the first image plane), and close‐ups (ie, depicted the brand on the first image plane on more than 50% of the screen; α= .71‐.79) . Furthermore, verbal indications were classified as central (α = .79‐.90) . We created a dummy variable assessing whether the product was placed centrally or close up (=1) or in the background (=0).…”

Social Media Influencer Marketing and Children’s Food Intake: A Randomized Trial

“…[1][2][3][4][5] The World Health Organization has called on governments to implement policies that promote the intake of healthy foods and reduce the intake of unhealthy foods by children and adolescents. 6 The detrimental effects of traditional broadcast marketing, 7-10 and HFSS product placement, [11][12][13][14] on children's eating behavior are well established. The Internet is now a major platform for food marketing, 15 and recent studies suggest that digital marketing may have similar effects to that of television.…”