Children's Marketing and Interactivity Under Attack

July 21, 2006

Children’s marketing and interactive commercials during children’s TV programming have been on the hot seat this week.  There have been three important developments in these areas: 

• ANA wrote to the members of the Senate Commerce Committee expressing our opposition to several provisions in the communications reform bill approved by that Committee in late June.  Those provisions would seriously stifle the development of new media and communications technologies.

• The Kaiser Family Foundation released an important report on Wednesday describing online marketing of food and beverage products to children.  ANA took part in a panel discussing the new report and the efforts of the marketing community to address concerns about childhood obesity.

• Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein attacked children’s marketing at a conference sponsored by Children Now, a children’s advocacy group based in California.  All three policymakers called for bans or serious restrictions on any interactivity between commercials in children’s programs and commercial websites.