Eduqas GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition: Student Book

144 CORE KNOWLEDGE MARKETING AND ADVERTISING What will I learn? • What information is available to consumers about food choice • How marketing and food labelling influence food choice Marketing The food industry invests large amounts on advertising its products, and supermarkets alone spent over £450 million on advertising in 2014. Advertising highlights the range of products available to consumers, whilst marketing covers the strategies companies use to sell their products. To ensure that the products made are going to be popular, companies will carry out market research . This can involve finding out the range of food products being produced by rival companies and identifying the target market for the product. Market research can include: • Primary research – this is research carried out directly for the development of a product, and can include tasting sessions, questionnaires and telephone surveys. • Secondary research – this research is gathered from existing information available on websites and from research reports. Marketing techniques are also employed within supermarkets to ensure that products are highlighted to customers. This is called product placement , and it can involve techniques such as placing products on prominent display such as on the end of an aisle or at the entrance to the store. Other ways of increasing customer interest in a particular product include the distribution of money off coupons, in store tasting sessions and special offers such as buy one get one free (BOGOF) and three for two. Advertising Advertising is big business – wherever you go you will see adverts for a variety of products and services. Ways of advertising include: • Television • Internet • Billboards • Shop windows • Buses and trains • Newspapers and magazines • Cinemas • Leaflets • Using celebrities to endorse products. A large proportion of these adverts are for food and drink items and most are designed to target the group or groups of people who are most likely to buy these products. Advertising is regularly aimed at children, as through ‘ pester power ’ they often have the ability to influence food and drink purchases made by the family. However, since 2007 new rules have been introduced to prevent the advertisement of food and drinks classified as being high in fat, sugar and salt during television programmes aimed at any young person under the age of 16. This is in response to concerns about the rise in childhood obesity. 1 Explain how companies can use primary and secondary research to help develop new products. 2 Discuss ways that supermarkets could use marketing and advertising to increase sales of healthy option foods. Activities Extension Collect a range of advertisements for foods. Discuss who they are aimed at and what techniques have been used to encourage consumers to buy the product. Make a list of different ways that foods can be advertised. Check it