Analysis of Junk Food Placement: Social Media's Impact on Adolescents

This report analyzes the impact of junk food placement in media, including social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, on consumer behavior, particularly among adolescents. It highlights how advertisements and brand placements influence food choices and brand loyalty, often leading to poor health outcomes. The report discusses the inability of younger audiences to discern the intent behind advertisements and how social media facilitates brand promotion through personalized advertisements, peer interactions, and celebrity endorsements. The study references various research papers to support the argument that media, especially in the digital age, plays a significant role in shaping consumer preferences, ultimately affecting the health of young individuals. The report concludes that advertisements on everyday media and on social media have a great influence on the consumer preference of their food and their choices.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF PLACEMENT OF JUNK FOOD
Analysis of Placement of Junk Food
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1ANALYSIS OF PLACEMENT OF JUNK FOOD
The junk food or the processed food are the key driver in today’s generation of the
choices of diet. The social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram along with the
everyday media channels helps in the brand loyalty and also influences the younger
generation to make a shift in their food expenditures.
The leading cause of poor health and obesity is due to the junk food that the everyday
media advertises. The advertisements of the junk food in the media requires the ability of the
youngsters to discriminate between the commercial and the non-commercial ones. It has been
agreed by Thomas et.al., (2015), that there has been evidences where the children who belong
to the age group of 8 to 10 years are unable to understand the underlying intent of the
advertisements in the everyday media. Moreover, the placement of the junk food in the social
media helps in the promotion of the relationship between the brand and the customers. But on
the other hand it helps to reduce the ability of the youngsters to understand the underlying
content (Yegiyan & Bailey, 2016).
With the increase of the social media usage among the present generation, the brands
of the junk food get a platform to increase their popularity and to also reach greater amount
of audience. The target audience of the hunk food are the teenagers and the young generation.
Thus social media helps in the brand publicity through personalized advertisements. Also
according to Uribe & Fuentes-Garcia (2015), the social media users can even communicate
with their friends and peers about a particular food product by posting the same, by tagging
them and also by reposting competitions. This brings in the extension of the individual
advertisements. Moreover, this also creates a sentiment among the people that certain brands
and the products are used by the sportspeople and the celebrities thus increasing the sale of
the same.

2ANALYSIS OF PLACEMENT OF JUNK FOOD
Along with increasing the brand loyalty, the adolescents are the major target.
Instagram and Facebook being the commonly used social media platforms help in the sharing
of photos and videos. The parents are unable to move beyond the desires and demands of
their children falling a victim to severe health hazards. It has been found out that more than
15 most popular junk food companies added their accounts on Instagram. Some of these were
KFC, McDonald’s, Starbucks, subway, Coca-Cola and others (Alassani & Göretz, 2019). The
advertisements of the junk food and also their placement in these accounts attract more
number of youngsters and they fall a severe victim to the slow poison.
Thus it can be concluded that advertisement on everyday media and on the social
media have a great influence on the consumer preference of their food and their choices.
Making it successful for the brands and effecting the health of the adolescents, the everyday
media play a great role in the age of digitalisation.

3ANALYSIS OF PLACEMENT OF JUNK FOOD
Reference List:
Alassani, R., & Göretz, J. (2019, July). Product placements by micro and macro influencers
on Instagram. In International conference on human-computer interaction (pp. 251-
267). Springer, Cham.
Thomas, S. L., Bestman, A., Pitt, H., Deans, E., Randle, M. J., Stoneham, M., & Daube, M.
(2015). The marketing of wagering on social media: An analysis of promotional
content on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
Uribe, R., & Fuentes-García, A. (2015). The effects of TV unhealthy food brand placement
on children. Its separate and joint effect with advertising. Appetite, 91, 165-172.
Yegiyan, N. S., & Bailey, R. L. (2016). Food as risk: How eating habits and food knowledge
affect reactivity to pictures of junk and healthy foods. Health communication, 31(5),
635-642.