Cargando…

Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis

BACKGROUND: Parents’ feeding practices in the first 2 years of life have profound effects on children's survival, health and development throughout their lives. Decisions on how to feed infants and young children should be based on the best information and evidence, not influenced by commercial...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zhao, Jing, Freeman, Becky, Guo, Ruihua, Li, Mu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9926389/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36798887
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20552076231155683
_version_ 1784888269833502720
author Zhao, Jing
Freeman, Becky
Guo, Ruihua
Li, Mu
author_facet Zhao, Jing
Freeman, Becky
Guo, Ruihua
Li, Mu
author_sort Zhao, Jing
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Parents’ feeding practices in the first 2 years of life have profound effects on children's survival, health and development throughout their lives. Decisions on how to feed infants and young children should be based on the best information and evidence, not influenced by commercial interests. China is the largest and fastest-growing market for formula milk products. Social media has emerged as a distinctive marketing avenue that can reach consumers directly. Weibo is one of the most popular Chinese social media platforms. This study examined four of the most popular milk formula brands’ official Weibo accounts: Biotime, Mead Johnson, YiLi-Prokido, and Friso. QUESTION: What messages posted and what marketing practices and tactics are used by formula milk brands on Weibo. METHODS: We manually downloaded all posts in the four accounts between 1 January and 31 December 2018. Based on previous studies, we developed a marketing practices coding framework and selected ten mutually exclusive categories for coding and analysing the posts. FINDINGS: Among 2667 original posts analysed, 65% were from three dominant categories: user engagement (939/2667, 35.2%), parenting advice (516/2667, 19.3%), and celebrity endorsement (327/2667, 12.3%). Other categories included making pseudo-health or nutrition claims and portraying breastfeeding as a painful or problematic experience. CONCLUSION: Widespread marketing practices and tactics were found in the four examined Weibo accounts of formula milk brands. Monitoring and regulation of formula milk marketing on social media are urgently needed. Social media platforms should also be held accountable for protecting a supportive breastfeeding environment.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9926389
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher SAGE Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-99263892023-02-15 Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis Zhao, Jing Freeman, Becky Guo, Ruihua Li, Mu Digit Health Original Research BACKGROUND: Parents’ feeding practices in the first 2 years of life have profound effects on children's survival, health and development throughout their lives. Decisions on how to feed infants and young children should be based on the best information and evidence, not influenced by commercial interests. China is the largest and fastest-growing market for formula milk products. Social media has emerged as a distinctive marketing avenue that can reach consumers directly. Weibo is one of the most popular Chinese social media platforms. This study examined four of the most popular milk formula brands’ official Weibo accounts: Biotime, Mead Johnson, YiLi-Prokido, and Friso. QUESTION: What messages posted and what marketing practices and tactics are used by formula milk brands on Weibo. METHODS: We manually downloaded all posts in the four accounts between 1 January and 31 December 2018. Based on previous studies, we developed a marketing practices coding framework and selected ten mutually exclusive categories for coding and analysing the posts. FINDINGS: Among 2667 original posts analysed, 65% were from three dominant categories: user engagement (939/2667, 35.2%), parenting advice (516/2667, 19.3%), and celebrity endorsement (327/2667, 12.3%). Other categories included making pseudo-health or nutrition claims and portraying breastfeeding as a painful or problematic experience. CONCLUSION: Widespread marketing practices and tactics were found in the four examined Weibo accounts of formula milk brands. Monitoring and regulation of formula milk marketing on social media are urgently needed. Social media platforms should also be held accountable for protecting a supportive breastfeeding environment. SAGE Publications 2023-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9926389/ /pubmed/36798887 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20552076231155683 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research
Zhao, Jing
Freeman, Becky
Guo, Ruihua
Li, Mu
Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis
title Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis
title_full Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis
title_fullStr Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis
title_full_unstemmed Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis
title_short Formula milk brands marketing on Chinese social media Weibo – a content analysis
title_sort formula milk brands marketing on chinese social media weibo – a content analysis
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9926389/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36798887
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20552076231155683
work_keys_str_mv AT zhaojing formulamilkbrandsmarketingonchinesesocialmediaweiboacontentanalysis
AT freemanbecky formulamilkbrandsmarketingonchinesesocialmediaweiboacontentanalysis
AT guoruihua formulamilkbrandsmarketingonchinesesocialmediaweiboacontentanalysis
AT limu formulamilkbrandsmarketingonchinesesocialmediaweiboacontentanalysis