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How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial

BACKGROUND: Worldwide obesity rates have prompted 16 countries to enact policies to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing, but few policies address online advertising practices or protect adolescents from being targeted. Given adolescents spend so much time online, it is critical to...

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Autores principales: Bragg, Marie, Lutfeali, Samina, Greene, Tenay, Osterman, Jessica, Dalton, Madeline
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8571690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34677136
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28689
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author Bragg, Marie
Lutfeali, Samina
Greene, Tenay
Osterman, Jessica
Dalton, Madeline
author_facet Bragg, Marie
Lutfeali, Samina
Greene, Tenay
Osterman, Jessica
Dalton, Madeline
author_sort Bragg, Marie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Worldwide obesity rates have prompted 16 countries to enact policies to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing, but few policies address online advertising practices or protect adolescents from being targeted. Given adolescents spend so much time online, it is critical to understand how persuasive Instagram food advertisements (ads) are compared with traditional food ads. To strengthen online food marketing policies, more evidence is needed on whether social media ads are more persuasive than other types of ads in shaping adolescents’ preferences. OBJECTIVE: This study examined whether adolescents could identify food companies’ Instagram posts as ads, and the extent to which Instagram versus traditional food ads shape adolescents’ preferences. METHODS: In Part 1, participants aged 13-17 years (N=832) viewed 8 pairs of ads and were asked to identify which ads originated from Instagram. One ad in each pair was selected from traditional sources (eg, print; online banner ad), and the other ad was selected from Instagram, but we removed the Instagram frame—which includes the logo, comments, and “likes.” In Part 2, participants were randomized to rate food ads that ostensibly originated from (1) Instagram (ie, we photoshopped the Instagram frame onto ads); or (2) traditional sources. Unbeknownst to participants, half of the ads in their condition originated from Instagram and half originated from traditional sources. RESULTS: In Part 1, adolescents performed worse than chance when asked to identify Instagram ads (P<.001). In Part 2, there were no differences on 4 of 5 outcomes in the “labeled ad condition.” In the “unlabeled ad condition,” however, they preferred Instagram ads to traditional ads on 3 of 5 outcomes (ie, trendiness, P=.001; artistic appeal, P=.001; likeability, P=.001). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents incorrectly identified traditional ads as Instagram posts, suggesting the artistic appearance of social media ads may not be perceived as marketing. Further, the mere presence of Instagram features caused adolescents to rate food ads more positively than ads without Instagram features.
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spelling pubmed-85716902021-11-16 How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial Bragg, Marie Lutfeali, Samina Greene, Tenay Osterman, Jessica Dalton, Madeline J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Worldwide obesity rates have prompted 16 countries to enact policies to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing, but few policies address online advertising practices or protect adolescents from being targeted. Given adolescents spend so much time online, it is critical to understand how persuasive Instagram food advertisements (ads) are compared with traditional food ads. To strengthen online food marketing policies, more evidence is needed on whether social media ads are more persuasive than other types of ads in shaping adolescents’ preferences. OBJECTIVE: This study examined whether adolescents could identify food companies’ Instagram posts as ads, and the extent to which Instagram versus traditional food ads shape adolescents’ preferences. METHODS: In Part 1, participants aged 13-17 years (N=832) viewed 8 pairs of ads and were asked to identify which ads originated from Instagram. One ad in each pair was selected from traditional sources (eg, print; online banner ad), and the other ad was selected from Instagram, but we removed the Instagram frame—which includes the logo, comments, and “likes.” In Part 2, participants were randomized to rate food ads that ostensibly originated from (1) Instagram (ie, we photoshopped the Instagram frame onto ads); or (2) traditional sources. Unbeknownst to participants, half of the ads in their condition originated from Instagram and half originated from traditional sources. RESULTS: In Part 1, adolescents performed worse than chance when asked to identify Instagram ads (P<.001). In Part 2, there were no differences on 4 of 5 outcomes in the “labeled ad condition.” In the “unlabeled ad condition,” however, they preferred Instagram ads to traditional ads on 3 of 5 outcomes (ie, trendiness, P=.001; artistic appeal, P=.001; likeability, P=.001). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents incorrectly identified traditional ads as Instagram posts, suggesting the artistic appearance of social media ads may not be perceived as marketing. Further, the mere presence of Instagram features caused adolescents to rate food ads more positively than ads without Instagram features. JMIR Publications 2021-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8571690/ /pubmed/34677136 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28689 Text en ©Marie Bragg, Samina Lutfeali, Tenay Greene, Jessica Osterman, Madeline Dalton. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 22.10.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Bragg, Marie
Lutfeali, Samina
Greene, Tenay
Osterman, Jessica
Dalton, Madeline
How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial
title How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial
title_full How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial
title_fullStr How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial
title_full_unstemmed How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial
title_short How Food Marketing on Instagram Shapes Adolescents’ Food Preferences: Online Randomized Trial
title_sort how food marketing on instagram shapes adolescents’ food preferences: online randomized trial
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8571690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34677136
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28689
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