Food Marketing Part 1: Television Advertising

Over the past three weeks I have made informal studies of television advertising for food products. I noted what types of food ads I saw while watching World Cup soccer games on an Arabic language channel, and while watching “Ramadan Series” – sitcoms lasting the thirty days of Ramadan.

During the World Cup games (played on a field surrounded by Coca-Cola and McDonald’s logos), I saw ads for Lay’s potato chips, Boom Boom and Power Horse brand energy drinks, and Pepsi, which featured Argentine superstar Lionel Messi. These foods all fall, obviously, into the junk food/highly processed category.

This was an interesting contrast to the types of ads I observed during the Ramadan series, which I watched for four nights consecutively from approximately 8 to 9pm, just after the break fast meal. The most heavily advertised product was actually flour, including three major brands ( Nor’Dar, Moony, and May Mouna) running ads at least twice. The second most heavily advertised product was processed cheese, including four brands (La Vache Qui Rit, Kiri, Or Blanc, and Jebli) running ads once or twice during the one hour time period. The third most heavily advertised type of product was tea, including two brands each running multiple ads. Less-processed dairy, including two brands of yogurt (Danone and Activia) and a ready-to-eat strawberry smoothie (intended for serving at home) were also promoted. Other frequent ads were for bouillon cubes (two brands), Lio cooking oil, jarred tomato sauce, C-Bon energy drink mix, Valencia brand bottled juices, Dari dry pasta, and Ain Ifrane bottled water.

Overall, I saw ads for twenty different brands. Out of these twenty brands, half also have print ads on buildings or billboards in the city of Tangier: May Mouna flour, La Vache Qui Rit and Jebli cheese, both yogurt brands, the strawberry smoothie mix, one brand of tea, Valencia juice, Dari dry pasta, and Ain Ifrane bottled water. In the case of Jebli, May Mouna, Activia, and the smoothie mix, there were similarities between the television and print ads – same actors, motifs, etc. – indicating that advertising campaigns for these products are broad and include multiple types of media.

In the next few weeks, I will be analyzing print ads for food products on buildings and billboards in the city of Tangier.