Snopes post on Gatorade reads like advertising copy

As fizzy soda sales decline, top beverage manufacturers seek to convince children and parents that kids need sugary sports drinks to enhance athletic performance.

In truth, water is the best source of hydration for kids doing sports. Based on the balance of scientific evidence, the MyPlate text (.pdf) says it well: "Drink water instead of sugary drinks when you're thirsty." Plus, choosing bottled drinks instead of tap water is bad for the environment.

Early this year, Gatorade, which is owned by PepsiCo, got a pile of bad press -- including a hard-hitting Civil Eats article -- for a marketing campaign featuring Usain Bolt, which used kid-friendly games to insinuate athletic performance claims and disparage water (see below).

While reading up on that story, I came across this strange article in Snopes, which purports to fact-check a true rumor on the origins of Gatorade as a University of Florida Gators team drink, but which reads like advertising copy for the drink. The Snopes response reports as fact several marketing claims unrelated to the actual rumor at issue: "Other athletes who tried the drink soon swore by it, claiming it helped them go longer and finish stronger" and "Gatorade has since become an integral part of a number of sports."

I am writing Snopes to suggest that the site revise its article. I'll update this post if Snopes responds.
 

New Rudd Center report on marketing beverages to children

Would you say Coca-Cola, the parent company for FANTA, is marketing to children here?

Would you say Coca-Cola is marketing to children in these lesson plans for elementary school students?

If you say "yes" to either question, then do you think Coca-Cola is breaking its pledge not to advertise to children?

Coca-Cola's pledge says:

We have a global Responsible Marketing Policy that covers all our beverages, and we do not market any products directly to children under 12. This means we will not buy advertising directly targeted at audiences that are more than 35% children under 12. Our policy applies to television, radio, and print, and, where data is available, to the Internet and mobile phones.

I can think of some ways that Coca-Cola could say these marketing efforts are consistent with the pledge. Perhaps one could find research showing that the FANTA cartoon characters are designed to appeal to 13-year-olds but not 11-year-olds. Perhaps the websites where these characters appear have a children's audience share under 35%.  Perhaps the lesson plans don't qualify as "marketing." Perhaps the use of the word "directly" is supposed to give the marketers some wiggle room.

Still, under any of these explanations, the detailed defense only serves to show how empty the pledge is. 

This post was provoked by reading the Rudd Center's new report on marketing sugar-sweetened beverages to children (.pdf).

Cereal boxes from pop artist Ron English

A student points out these cereal boxes from pop artist Ron English, reportedly on a shelf in a Ralph's store. The Popaganda blog says: "Find a box, send it to Ron and he'll sign it."