Fast food giants using TikTok to market to children

Analysis of the TikTok content created by global fast food giants has uncovered a disturbing marketing trend.

Children are becoming viral brand ambassadors for fast food giants and attracting billions of views while promoting unhealthy food and drink on TikTok, new research shows.

Some of the most popular fast food giants, including McDonald’s, Pepsi, Cheetos, Doritos, Starbucks and 7-Eleven use hashtag challenges to seduce children into marketing their products.

Researchers from Deakin University’s Global Obesity Centre analysed the TikTok content of 16 of the world’s top-selling food and non-alcoholic beverage brands.

They found a range of marketing strategies encouraging children to create and share videos featuring their branding and products.

Doritos has created a hashtag challenge for children to create and share videos of themselves eating their products.

McDonald’s asked users to record themselves singing alongside a video featuring images of a McDonald’s product.

One of the researchers, Associate Professor Kathryn Backholer, said it was an “incredibly insidious strategy by TikTok and junk food marketing companies” that turned children into active participants in the marketing of junk food.

“TikTok’s own website describes these challenges as an opportunity for companies to turn TikTok users into their ‘unofficial brand ambassadors’ and we know that many TikTok users are children,” she said.

TikTok is very popular among children, with a third of users aged 14 and under.

Examples include chip brand Doritos, which created a hashtag challenge for children to create and share videos of themselves eating one of their products. McDonald’s asked users to record themselves singing alongside a video featuring images of a McDonald’s product.

A single hashtag challenge started by Pepsi collectively received 107.9 billion views.

K-pop band BTS promotes the ‘BTS meal’.

Associate Professor Backholer said such posts portrayed a positive sentiment and were viewed billions of times.

A single hashtag challenge started by Pepsi collectively received 107.9 billion views.

Celebrities are also used to appeal to children and induce them to promote the brands.

McDonald’s uses the K-pop band BTS to promote the “BTS meal” which has a product code on packaging that unlocks a branded effect on TikTok.

The campaign even has “collaboration merch” promoted to children.

Pepsi features a range of professional soccer players, including Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba, drinking its products.

TikTok is very popular among children.

Associate Professor Backholer said “strong government-led policies to protect children from the harmful impact of unhealthy food marketing are urgently needed”.

“This is about putting our children’s health before industry profits,” she said.

“Given TikTok’s popularity among children, this study supports the need for policies that protect children from the harmful impact of food marketing on social networking platforms”.

Lead author Ruby Brooks, an Associate Research Fellow at Deakin’s Global Obesity Centre, said such food marketing “influences kids’ food preferences, purchasing, requests, and consumption”.

“These companies predominantly sell unhealthy foods and the use of tactics like these is likely to drive increased selection and consumption of these foods,” she said.

Originally published as Fast food giants using TikTok to market to children