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Kellogg’s a cereal offender in marketing to children

For the second time in two weeks, cereal company Kellogg's has been reprimanded for marketing unhealthy foods to children.

The Advertising Standards Board has upheld a complaint made by the Obesity Policy Coalition in regards to Kellogg's 'fun facts' ads, ABC reports.

The ads, which will now be withdrawn, feature animated dinosaurs, snails and children's voices. The ABS found they primarily target children and are in breach of the Responsible Children's Marketing Initiative.

The coalition's spokeswoman Jane Martin she hopes the cost of making the ads, only to have them withdrawn, will be a deterrent for other food manufacturers.

"Obviously these advertisements won't be able to be run any more, it's a big cost to them," she said.

Martin added that the self regulation of junk food advertising isn't working, and called on the government to step in and regulate how food is marketed to children.

"What we need to do is call time on self regulation, this has been in place for four years and industry still aren't managing to abide by the rules that they set up, they're still marking their own homework," she said.

In October last year a study by the University of Sydney and the Cancer Council found that the number of junk food ads targeting children hadn't slowed, despite the introduction of the Responsible Marketing to Children Initiative.

Kellogg's said it was unaware of any consumers making complaints about its TV advertisements.

"As with the Coco Pops advertisement, the ASB didn't receive any complaints from consumers about this LCMs advertisement, but just the one from a lobby group.

"Nonetheless we fully respect and accept the role of the ASB and its decision," Kellogg's said in a statement.

 

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